


Casa Oscura

by LadyBaltimore



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1970s, 1990s, Adventure & Romance, Background Relationships, Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Castelobruxo, Drug Dealing, F/M, Gen, Hogwarts, Love Triangles, M/M, Marauders, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Mystery, Original Character(s), Partying, Pre-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Safehouses, South America, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-06 08:58:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19059403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyBaltimore/pseuds/LadyBaltimore
Summary: JUNE 1994: Sirius Black, the most wanted man in the wizarding world, is on the run again, this time headed south of the equator on the back of a stolen Hippogriff. He's following decade old intel on a magically fortified safe house located deep in the Amazon rainforest. He has no idea what to expect, but it's who's expecting him there that surprises him the most.As he ventures deeper into the mysteries of 'Casa Oscura,' he rediscovers moments in the past that have unintended consequences in the present, and that things are very rarely what they seem to be.





	1. The Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> Cross posted to HPFF as 'Casa Oscura' under my alternate pen name, DobbyMinerva.

**June 1994  
Brazil, somewhere in the Amazon **

Sirius Black never understood what true freedom felt like until now, soaring high over the dense rainforest canopy on the back of a stolen hippogriff, with nothing above them but a clear night sky filled with infinite stars.

For the second time in his life, he had escaped a fate worse than death. Just over two weeks ago, he was locked in a tower at Hogwarts, forced to wait in sickening agony for the Dementor’s Kiss that would devour his soul and leave his body behind as a mindless shell, doomed to spend the rest of its days rotting in Azkaban. But just when he thought all hope was lost, Harry Potter, the thirteen-year-old son of his long-dead best friend and the godson he thought he would never see again, appeared at his cell window riding a damn hippogriff.

“James, mate, wherever you are, I hope you’re at least getting a kick out of how fucking mental this all is,” he muttered.

Buckbeak responded with an impatient noise somewhere between a screech and squawk.

“Nearly there, old boy.” Sirius patted the animal. Whether Buckbeak was old or even a boy, he sincerely didn’t know, nor did he care. He had come to feel a sense of fraternity with the beast, a fellow fugitive fleeing punishment for a crime he did not commit.

Buckbeak was probably the strangest creature he had over come into contact with, with his huge eagle head, taloned front legs and horse-like rear and back, from which sprouted massive feathery wings. At first, he was just grateful Buckbeak didn’t tear him to shreds, but by now he considered himself lucky the hippogriff was his travel companion, as odd a pair as they may seem.

Up above the trees, the tropical humidity was cool and inviting and Sirius wasn’t so keen on diving lower into the thick abyss of the forest as they approached their destination.

Before steering Buckbeak downward into the dark understory, he checked the map under the moonlight. The map magically changed in scale as they got closer: a solid glowing dot in the upper right-hand corner lit the location of “ _casa oscura_ ,” while a moving, blinking dot indicated his and Buckbeak’s movements towards it. It made Sirius think of a certain other enchanted map he and his friends had made at Hogwarts long ago, but he tried to suppress his nostalgia for that time; sentimental feelings wouldn’t help him on this dangerous mission.

His only other source of navigation was an old-fashioned compass. It was a heavy brass instrument that he could imagine once belonged to some sort of muggle sailor around the turn of the century. It was enchanted to redirect towards their destination and buzz conspicuously whenever they went off course. It was quiet now.

He had acquired both the map and the compass shortly after his and Buckbeak’s arrival at the port in Macapa. He assumed the items belonged to the safehouse creator, but it was just a guess. The only clue he had about their origins were a set of initials inscribed on the back of the compass: T.H.W. Whoever T.H.W was probably never expected their compass would one day be used by a runaway wizard convict.

Under the thick leafy cover of the enormous trees was a different world. The minute they dove beneath the canopy, the moonlight disappeared and they were swallowed up in the lush darkness of the forest, greeted by a cacophony of nocturnal animals calling out to one another. It was disorienting and enthralling at the same time.

Sirius could only assume he was still in Brazil; the map did not show country borders, and his sense of geography was pitiful. He had never traveled outside of Britain before. The only foreign wizards he had met prior to his imprisonment were a group of South American exchange students who attended Hogwarts during his third year. He never saw any of them again after they returned to Castelobruxo.

But about a year before his friends' murder and his subsequent conviction, Sirius received a strange letter. In it was an encrypted set of instructions on how to access a secret, magically fortified bunker deep in the Amazon. The letter didn’t state a reason for sharing this information with Sirius other than: _i_ _n case you ever want to leave._

He recalled the bizarre circumstances under which he had met the letter’s sender: Joao C. Lobo Dias, one of the Brazilian exchange students.

The few, vague memories he had of Joao involved Bella, and anyone involved with Bella could hardly be thought of as trustworthy in his opinion. Because of this, Sirius was immediately skeptical of the message’s validity. But Voldemort's threat could no longer be ignored, so he showed the letter to James, telling him to look into it as a potential hiding place for him, Lily, and Harry. His friend merely shrugged it off, though,  saying it was probably a hoax, or a trap. And at the time, Sirius decided he was probably right.

Sirius committed the letter to memory nevertheless. He never imagined that a time would actually come when he would be desperate enough to ride a hippogriff across South America, following decade-old intel from a near-stranger who may or may not still be alive. But here he was, doing just that. Sirius now clung to this sliver of hope that Joao’s message was not disingenuous; the man, after all, owed Sirius his life.

Within the hour, they were there. Or at least where the lit marker on the map said they were.

Buckbeak landed eagerly on the soft forest floor, allowing Sirius to dismount and take in their surroundings. They stood in a small clearing that allowed just a sliver of moonlight through the towering trees. Just before them was a rather impressive waterfall that fed a robust tributary. It was difficult to see, but the roar of rushing water was near deafening. Buckbeak bent his head to drink from the basin of the falls.

He had no idea what to do next. He checked the map, but all it indicated was that their blinking dot had now converged with the solid glowing dot of _casa oscura_. But there was no  _casa_  of any sort in sight.

Suddenly, the pool at the base of the waterfall began to glow an eerie, iridescent blue that slowly spread to the mossy shore on which they stood. Buckbeak started and backed away from the water’s edge, glancing at Sirius warily.

He felt the compass in his pocket grow very hot, and nearly burnt his hand trying to take it out. Instinctively, he dropped it into the iridescent water at his feet.

They were startled by the loud, snapping sound of grinding tree bark, as two massive branches of a large nearby tree began growing and twisting together, forming what looked like a rather ominous circular portal leading into nothing but darkness. After a minute the branches stopped moving and the air was still again, apart from the sound of rushing water and a few stray calls from Howler monkeys above.

Sirius stared at the portal. He supposed that could have been worse; he was expecting to have to bleed on a rock or something to access the entrance. He was quite glad he didn’t have to do that…yet.

He walked around the tree portal to see if it led anywhere, but there was nothing behind it.

“Well, see you on other side, mate.” Sirius sighed to Buckbeak, as he led the way through.

Sirius let the darkness swallow him whole. When he closed his eyes, it made no difference. This was it, he thought; he was either going to find himself in an enchanted treehouse or else in the mouth of Hades. At this point, he could go either way.

He kept his eyes closed as he walked through until he sensed the glow of soft lights through his eyelids. He blinked, and stared. And then rubbed his eyes to make sure he was seeing correctly.

It certainly wasn’t a treehouse or Hades, but what he saw couldn’t be further from what he had imagined.

If Sirius didn’t know any better, he had just been transported into the living room of a small but tidy suburban muggle home. There was a sleek couch, a shag rug, circular lamps, and a small box television set. He was no expert in Muggle design, but if he had to guess, the furniture and appliances looked dated from the ’60s or ’70s.

Being on the run for so long made him instinctively paranoid, and now his mind raced: What if he had actually teleported into someone’s home? They're going to think he's robbing them and attack him. But he had no wand. Oh god, was he going to have to fist fight a suburbanite?

Buckbeak suddenly appeared behind him, announcing his presence with a loud squawk that nearly gave Sirius a heart attack.

“Bloody hell! Keep it down, you ruddy chicken!” he whispered furiously.

There was no chance they weren’t heard now. He braced himself, taking a small table lamp in hand as a weapon, but no one came running in to investigate the source of the clamor. Sirius walked around the rest of the place cautiously, examining each room.

The dwelling was small, but it had all the necessities: beyond the living room was a tiny kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and even a study. To most it would be modest, but to Sirius, this was a level of comfort he thought he'd never see again.

He began to notice clues that this wasn’t an ordinary muggle residence. For example, there were no windows or doors; this meant no one could easily get in, but he had yet to find a way to get out. He decided he would deal with that later. Perhaps after a hot shower.

The thought of being able to take a real shower again after 12 years almost made him cry. _Priorities, old man_ , he said to himself, containing his emotions. _I need to first make sure this place isn’t rigged to kill me, and second, figure out who runs this ship._

Sirius was most intrigued by the study. It packed with stuff but well organized, like a businessman’s home office. In the middle was sturdy writing desk, and against a wall leaned a few filing cabinets, a road bike, and a bag of golf clubs. A brief case sat on the floor in the corner and on a shelf above it were more retro-looking artifacts, including a transistor radio and a film camera.

What caught his eye, though, was a framed black-and-white photograph on the wall behind the desk. It depicted a still portrait of a handsome, fair-haired man around Sirius’s age, wearing a neatly-pressed Royal Air Force uniform. The caption at the bottom indicated the year it was taken—1940—and the pilot’s name: Group Capt. Theodore Henry Wood. 

 _So this is T.H.W_ , thought Sirius. _And he’s a Brit to boot, what are the odds_.

But Sirius had a jarring feeling that he knew this man. He racked his memory, blunted by years in Azkaban, for long forgotten names and faces of minor characters from his former life: his muggle neighbors at Grimmauld place, the clerk at the grocery store from around the corner, his classmates at Hogwarts, Gryffindor house…there, that was it.

He figured out why the name was familiar, but now had only more questions.

“Shit. That's got to be a coincidence,” he muttered aloud in disbelief, staring at the photo. “Or I'm bloody dreaming.”

“You’re not,” responded a cold female voice behind him.


	2. The Foreigner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1973: Four exchange students from Castelobruxo dish on their host peers. Unbeknownst to the others, one of them has different reasons for studying abroad.

**November, 1973  
** **Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry**

 

Of all the sprawling grounds, great halls, and looming towers of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it was the library that captivated Eugenia the most. Its cavernous medieval rooms housed shelves upon shelves of large, dusty volumes holding millennia’s worth of knowledge, history, and magic.

She perused the library one late afternoon for a book for Ancient Runes, her favorite class. She had a knack for languages, whether they be modern or ancient, human or non-human. She could spend hours translating arcane scripts, teaching herself how to write in strange alphabets and obscure symbols.

Maria Eugenia Rivas Garcia, age seventeen, was not an ordinary Hogwarts student. She was in the middle of her sixth year enrolled at Castelobruxo, the South American school of magic in the heart of the Amazon. Her sudden decision last summer to do an exchange year at the wizarding school in chilly, remote Scotland had baffled her family and many of her peers. Yes, it was only November and it was already colder than any winter she’s experienced in South America. Yes, she missed the vibrant flora of the rainforest. But for the first time in a long time, she felt there was no place she’d rather be.

Midterm exams were near, so the study rooms and tables were more crowded than usual. From one of the aisles, she spied on a table of tense-looking seventh years. Their books were piled high in the middle and their noses were buried in scrolls of parchment so long they spilled over the edge of the table and onto the floor. They were writing furiously, only pausing every now and then to look something up in a book or to pose a terse question to their mates.

They were NEWT students, preparing to take their final and most difficult exams before graduating Hogwarts. In a year’s time, she realized, she would be back in Brazil, doing what they’re doing now, studying for tests they’ve been told would determine their careers and set the trajectory of their lives forever. It saddened her slightly, this seemingly universal expectation that learning served purpose above passion, even in the magical world.

Finally, she found the book she was looking for: a thick volume titled _Magical Hieroglyphs and Logograms_. She began to make her way back to check out before heading to the Great Hall for dinner.

Just as she was about to emerge from the end of the aisle, a male student crossed directly into her path. It was one of the tense-faced seventh years who had been working at the table nearby. He had been striding up the aisles holding a book open in front of him, head bent and face furrowed in concentration on the text in his hands, unknowingly on a crash course for Eugenia. She just barely stopped short and turned her body quickly enough to avoid collision, but lost her grip on the large runes book, which flew out of her hands and onto the floor in front of the boy.

He looked up with a fleeting expression of surprise and annoyance, as if she had thrown the book at him on purpose, that softened quickly into a more apologetic look. He bent hastily to pick up the book and handed it back to her. “Sorry ‘bout that. You ok?” he said breathlessly.

She avoided his eyes, flinching. “I’m fine. Sorry I didn’t see you,” she found herself apologizing on impulse, even though it was mostly his fault.

He gave her a short, conciliatory nod, and in no time resumed his preoccupied pace through the library.

This brief, awkward encounter was enough to make her suddenly feel very exposed, as though all eyes in the vicinity were on her. But a quick scan of the room revealed no such thing; noses remained buried in books and scrolls of parchment as they always were.

\---

Coming from the dim, quiet library, the bright lights and clamor of the Great Hall at dinnertime were an assault on the senses. Yet there was something mesmerizing about seeing the entire school together in one place at the same time, like watching different species of animals interact at a watering hole.

The Great Hall lived up to its name in size and character; overhead the high-vaulted enchanted ceiling mirrored the darkening sky outside, while hundreds of candles flickered on enormous chandeliers floating untethered in midair. Students dined on long, wooden tables separated by their houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin.

Eugenia was one of four exchange students that year from Castelobruxo, so the decision was made to have one of them hosted in each of the four houses. Victor Valdez, a Colombian, got Ravenclaw, while the two Brazilians, Marta Oliveiros and Joao Lobo Dias were sorted into Hufflepuff and Slytherin respectively. This left Eugenia, an Argentinian, with Gryffindor.

Whereas the other three were matched to houses that more or less aligned with their personalities, Eugenia felt that her assignment did not match hers at all. Gryffindors were supposed to have daring, nerve, and chivalry. Eugenia wasn’t sure about the ‘chivalry’ part, but ‘daring’ and ‘nerve’ definitely not. She thought for sure she would get placed in Ravenclaw, given her penchant for reading, but it went to Victor instead, perhaps because he was the more outspoken intellectual of the group.

She didn’t have anything against Gryffindor as a whole, but her roommates were another story. Bertha Jorkins, Ruth Macdonald, and Florence Bell would go out their way to be nice to her whenever she was around, but always in a way that never felt quite sincere. They lavished her with bubbly praise that made her feel uncomfortable, such as “Oh Eugenia, you are so pretty! I have this new potion that really does wonders for my pores—you should try it.” Or “You’re so good at Runes—I always fall asleep in that class, you must be really smart!”

Nonetheless, as she scanned Gryffindor table for a place to sit, the only natural place seemed to be the space next to Bertha, Ruth, and Flo, who were gossiping loudly with everyone in earshot, so she resigned to make her way over.

Then a voice behind her shouted: “ _Vem cá_ , Euge’!” It was Marta Oliveiros, beckoning her so loudly in Portuguese that several students at the next table turned around to look at them. Eugenia was slightly embarrassed at having her foreignness called out so publicly, but she was nonetheless grateful to not have to sit with the Gryffindor girls tonight.

Marta was sitting with Victor at the end of the Ravenclaw table closest to the entrance. He waved to her as she approached. “Victor and I were thinking that us Castelo students haven’t had a proper meal together in a while, so tonight’s the night,” said Marta cheerfully, patting the space on the bench next to her.

“We’re sitting far from the staff table so McGonagall doesn’t see. Don’t want her to think we’re not _immersing_ properly with the local population,” added Victor, mocking the Professor’s long orientation talk at the beginning of the school year.

“Where is Joao?” Eugenia asked.

“He said he’ll be along a little later,” said Victor. “I ran into him earlier and let him know we were meeting.”

“Anyway,”  Marta turned to Eugenia. “I’m glad you’re here, because I wanted to ask you something: girl to girl.” Eugenia could practically hear Victor roll his eyes.

Marta ignored him. “So I want your honest opinion: what do you think about Amos Diggory.”

“Which one is he again?” asked Eugenia, genuinely unsure.

“The one in my house who asked me out, remember?” Marta jerked her head in the direction of the Hufflepuff table directly behind her.

“Oh…right.” Eugenia glanced over Marta’s shoulder at the Hufflepuffs. She picked out Amos sitting among an animated group of sixth years. He was good-looking in a very wholesome way, telling his friends a story that made them frequently break into laughter.

“He seems nice,” she observed, still staring at him.

“Ay, don’t look so obvious, Euge’!” hissed Marta, slapping Eugenia on the arm as a warning to avert her gaze before he noticed. But it was too late. Amos spotted them and beamed, waving enthusiastically. Eugenia waved back, feeling it would be rude not to, forcing Marta to turn around in her seat and give him her best fake smile.

Marta glared at her when she turned back. “You really need to be more discreet,” she said while throwing a bread roll across the table at Victor, who was trying in vain not to laugh.

“Sorry, Mar. Long day…I just spaced out.”

“I’ll say, staring at those books all day. Don’t you ever do anything fun? Come on, we’re exchange students, no one actually expects us to take our classes _that_ seriously.”

Eugenia had to grudgingly admit Marta had a point. Most students did not go abroad for the academics. “So, how are you going to respond to Amos, then?” she asked while she spooned a serving of shepherd's pie onto her plate.

“Oh, I just don’t know. I mean he is really nice, right? I think I might say yes.”

“Brilliant,” she exclaimed in her best supportive girlfriend voice. “I think you and him would go along great together. You can forget all about King…”

“Shush!” Marta silenced her as if the entire room could hear them. “Not so loud. And no,” she admitted defeatedly, “I definitely still like _him_ ,” indicating the crush whose name Eugenia was forbidden to say out loud. “But I just don’t think I’ll ever work up the courage to tell him how I really feel,” she sighed.

Victor made a gagging noise. “Lemme guess: is this mystery guy a Gryffindor Head Boy, whom half of Hogwarts wants to date, whose name rhymes with ‘Princely Nuts and Bolts’? Honestly, Mar, can your taste in men be any more predictable?”

Marta crossed her arms. “OK, well who exactly is your type these days, Vic?” 

Victor had already picked up one of his books and began reading to indicate he was growing bored of this conversation. “I dunno. There’s this guy named Xeno in my house who wears a vest made entirely of lizard feet, I was thinking of asking him out,” he deadpanned.

As Marta reacted to this, Eugenia noticed that Joao Lobo Dias had entered the Great Hall at the head of a rather intimidating band of Slytherins. Of the houses at Hogwarts, Slytherin had the most enigmatic and least savory reputation. They were generally an uninviting looking bunch who tended to keep to themselves, preferring to stroll the corridors and courtyards in groups of three or four with cool, superior looks on their faces. She could tell a lot of them came from wealthy families, wearing high-end robes and expensive looking jewelry.

Joao himself was an enigma: he was polite and soft-spoken, but was perhaps the most socially-savvy person Eugenia knew. He seemed to always do and say the right thing, though his motives were often difficult to read. At the moment he was talking to Lucius Malfoy, a seventh-year prefect with a silver-blond slickback who always seemed to be sneering.

When he spotted them, he peeled off from the Slytherins with a quick nod to Malfoy, who led the group over to their house table at the opposite side of the hall.

“Having fun with Lord Malfoy and Friends?” Victor asked. Joao didn't answer, but merely gave Victor a cryptic smile.

“What have you all been talking about?” 

“Who is that girl?” blurted Marta, ignoring his question, tilting her head to where Joao’s entrance party just sat down. “When I see her in the halls she’s always with that same, thuggish group, but she’s just absolutely stunning.”

Joao glanced over to where Marta indicated. “That’s Bella,” he said. “Bella Black.”

Both Victor and Eugenia looked up as well to observe Bella, who was sitting next to Malfoy. She was indeed beautiful, with thick, shiny dark hair, full lips, and a smooth, pale complexion. Yet Eugenia felt there was something oddly sinister about her, something about those heavy-lidded eyes that bore a look of both cool authority and disinterest as she listened to the conversation next to her.

Suddenly, Bella turned her face slightly and locked her gaze with Eugenia’s from across the hall, a slow, dark smile spreading across her perfect red mouth.

Eugenia’s heart jumped into her throat as she quickly looked down. _I must have imagined that, she can’t have seen me from there_ , she told herself. When she dared to look up, Bella’s haughty, bored stare was trained back on her neighbors. Real or not, the interaction seemed to have escaped the attention of her friends, who continued to chat amicably.

“Euge’, you haven’t said a single word on what’s going on over in Gryffindor. Tell us the latest,” said Marta eagerly.

“Um, well, we lost the match against Ravenclaw last weekend,” said Eugenia lamely, unable to think of anything else to contribute. Eugenia normally didn’t pay much attention to Quidditch, but she had been coerced by Bertha, Flo, and Ruth to go. The game was more exciting than she had anticipated, with Ravenclaw very narrowly defeating her house team.

“That was pretty epic. It’s all anyone’s been talking about in the common room,” said Victor.

“Ugh, but we were all at the match, Euge’, we all saw what happened,” Marta groaned. “Don’t tell me in the three months you’ve lived in that house that you haven’t learned anything interesting about anyone?”

The only gossip she knew was from her roommates talking away late at night in the dorm, but she cared little for their petty commentary on who was wearing what, who was dating who, and would purge their conversations from her memory fairly quickly.

“Not really. I guess I haven’t spent a lot of time with them,” she admitted, trying not to feel like the misfit Marta was quickly making her out to be.

“Ay, Eugenia,” said Marta, taking on an annoyingly maternal tone. “This is the only chance we have to go abroad for a whole year before we have to take our entrance exams and go out into the real world. Why don’t you enjoy yourself more, learn about a new culture, meet new people. Otherwise, why not just stay behind in Castelo if you’re just going to study! Don’t let this opportunity pass you by being so antisocial.”

At this point, Victor and Joao were avoiding eye contact and furiously busying themselves with the food on their plates, as if to say, _we have no opinion on this matter_.

Despite all the signals that she was making everyone uncomfortable, Marta pressed on. “People ask me about you all the time, you know. They say, ‘oh, I see your friend Eugenia, the pretty one, in the library all the time. Tell her to come out with us!’ The point is, people want to get to know you better, so let them.”

Eugenia was speechless. She knew Marta meant well, but she had struck a nerve. 

She was a meticulous student, that much was true, but it wasn't just her coursework that kept her whiling away alone in the library until curfew. It was her secret endeavor, the one that prowled the recesses of her mind at all hours: when she was eating meals, in class, or lying awake in her bed at night. Three months of searching had yielded little progress, and yet she couldn't give it up.

Marta was oblivious to Eugenia's private struggles. In fact, all of her classmates were. She never told them her terrible summer back home in Buenos Aires, during which she discovered that everything she thought she knew about her life was a lie. They all assumed that she was studying abroad in search of something new and unfamiliar. They would never guess she was there in search of who she was and where she came from.

 _They want to know who I really am? Well guess what, Mar_ — _so do I._  

Eugenia was staring silently at her plate, lost in her all-consuming thoughts, and didn't realize Victor was trying to get her attention until a dinner roll soared from across the table and landed on her shepherd's pie. 

She looked up to see Victor grinning cheekily at her. "Breaking News," he said in a fake radio-announcer voice. "We've made contact with the alien planet. We've found life, I repeat, we've found life on Planet Rivas." 

Despite her irritable mood, she found herself returning his smile.

"Bugger off, Vic," she told him in English. Her stilted use of British vernacular made her friends laugh slightly more than warranted. She knew she hadn't been that funny; they were probably just relieved to see that she wasn't upset.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made one slight twist to canon by making Bellatrix in school at the same time as the Marauders. In this story, her age relative to Andromeda is also switched, so that Andromeda is older and already graduated by the time the story begins. I could be wrong, but I don't think the years they attended Hogwarts or their relative ages were mentioned in the books, only in supplemental material, so I felt comfortable making the switch (Andromeda always seemed like the older, more mature one anyway). Everything else should be canon-compliant in terms of timeline.


	3. The Interrogator

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Casa Oscura, Sirius encounters a face he thought he'd never see again.

**June 1994  
** **Casa Oscura**

 

Sirius slowly turned around to face the person who was probably there to kill him.

He stared at the woman standing in the doorway of the study, with her wand trained at his chest. Her face was another he hadn’t seen or thought of in ages, yet he remembered her clearly.

“Eugenia?” he croaked.

She was one of the Castelobruxo cohort at Hogwarts during his third year. An Argentine girl four years his senior, with a slender, willowy figure, expressive dark eyes, and long brown hair. He fancied her back then. Despite being in shock and fearing for his life, he couldn’t help but think: _damn, it’s like she hasn’t aged at all._

“I’m surprised you remember me, Sirius.”

“A lad never forgets his first love, even one that was way out of his league,” he said, in an awkward attempt to diffuse the tension. It didn’t work.

“How did you find this place?” she demanded, eyeing him warily.

“A letter from your old mate, Joao. Told me how to access the vault in Macapa. Got the map and compass, and you can guess the rest.”

“You flew here from there?”

“Yup, hence the hippogriff in the living room.”

He suddenly remembered Buckbeak. “Wait, what did you do with Buckbeak?”

“What?”

“The hippogriff—did you do something to him? Why didn’t he attack you?”

She frowned. “I let him outside. He flew away.”

Sirius cursed.  _Stupid bird_ , he thought, feeling betrayed. _So much for having my back_.

“Where’s the door out of this place anyway?” he asked.

“Don’t worry about that. Tell me first how you escaped the Ministry.”

Sirius narrowed his eyes. “And why should I tell you that?”

From her jacket pocket she withdrew a leather encased I.D. badge, and held it up for him to see. Sirius recognized the emblem of the International Wizarding Intelligence Agency, and his heart dropped. He was screwed.

“You’re going to have to kill me first, I’m not going back to prison.”

“Who says I’m here to arrest you?”

“I reckon you’re not here to catch up on old times.”

“I was alerted that someone accessed the safehouse. I came to investigate. But I’ve been expecting you—frankly I thought you’d be here sooner.”

“Did Joao tell you about the letter? Where is he now?

“Dead. Killed by members of a Death Eater-linked cartel in Colombia, 12 years ago. But before he was murdered, he told me he sent you the letter. After you first escaped, I thought you might try to come here, so I’ve been monitoring it since then. It was very foolish of him to share the access procedures with you, and highly illegal. The safehouses are supposed to be for witness protection or agents only…”

“Wait, Joao worked for the IWIA?”

“Yes. You didn’t know?”

“No, he didn’t say much else in the letter, certainly nothing about himself. Had I known I probably wouldn’t have come here, given my situation.”

“I’d say you were taking a huge leap of faith either way.”

“What can I say, I was desperate. It was either flee the country or face the Dementor’s Kiss.”

Just the mention of Dementors made her shudder.  

“So, if you knew I might come here—me, the world’s most-wanted mass murderer—why didn’t you, say, I don’t know, change the bloody locks or something?"

She hesitated before answering. She still hadn't lowered her wand, but now looked at him with a far different expression from when she came in. “I needed to be sure…I had to see you, ask you in person.”

At that, Sirius let out a short, derisive laugh. “What? You wanted to ask if I killed all those muggles, betrayed my best friends to Voldemort, and murdered poor little _Peter Pettigrew._ ” He spat the traitor's name out, barely containing the sickening rage it brought up. “Would you even believe me if I told you the truth?”

“Possibly,” she said quietly.

“And why’s that?”

“Because I have reason to suspect Pettigrew might still be alive.”

Sirius stared at her. _Did I hear her correctly? She knows about Wormtail?_

“What? How could you possibly…”

“Joao. He was looking into your case. You were already in Azkaban by then, but he began to suspect Pettigrew had been colluding with Voldemort. I only found out about this last year, after your first escape. That’s when I began digging into his old files.”

He didn’t know what to say. He was first taken aback that she had said Voldemort’s name out loud; perhaps people from other countries weren’t so sensitive about it. But the idea that someone at the International Wizarding Intelligence Agency believed he was innocent was beyond him. Could this be enough to clear his name?

“Before you get your hopes up,” she said, seeming to read his thoughts, “his case against Pettigrew…it was all speculative. He was able to come up with a compelling alternate interpretation of what happened. But without anything else to back it up, it wouldn’t be enough to absolve you…”

“Then why was he looking into it in the first place?”

“At the time, Joao was part of a task force investigating dark wizards suspected of mass crimes against muggles—he was the best profiler in the Agency. He was running a case study on you and began to notice that things didn’t quite add up…the fact that you were sentenced without a trial, that hardly any physical evidence of Pettigrew’s body could be found, and that the only eyewitnesses were muggles whose memories could have been easily manipulated. But most of all, he wasn’t convinced that you fit the profile of a murderer. He felt your motive to betray Lily and James Potter to Voldemort was missing.”

Sirius said nothing. He wondered if she knew about his encounter with Joao at that dreadful party back in ’73. Though she probably would have mentioned it if it was somewhere in the files…

Eugenia continued. “He also knew you were part of the Order of the Phoenix, as were Lily, James, and Peter. Voldemort had a spy in your ranks, and after looking into Pettigrew’s personal history, Joao found signs that pointed to Peter being the mole.”

“You mean the rat,” spat Sirius. Eugenia looked puzzled, but he didn’t elaborate on what he meant. He wasn’t sure yet if he should tell her that both he and Peter are unregistered animagi.

“So,” he said, “if I’m understanding this correctly: for at least the first year I was locked up in that hellhole, I was being analyzed by one of the best criminal profilers in the wizarding world, yet he never once thought to interview me in person?”

“That’s the thing, he tried to request an interview with you in Azkaban. Several times. And each time he was denied by the Ministry, citing ‘security concerns.’ But in reality, I think they disliked the idea of the IWIA interfering in what they considered to be a domestic affair.”

_Or they’re covering up their complete disregard for due process and human rights_ , he thought bitterly.

“The Agency eventually told Joao to stop wasting time on this tangential investigation and move on to the Death Eater cartel in Colombia. He was killed shortly after. Unfortunately, he was never able to find the proof he needed to formally reopen your case.”

Sirius let this all sink in for a moment before asking her, “Do _you_ believe I’m innocent?”

“I _want_ to believe that Joao’s instincts about you were correct,” she treaded carefully, “but I’m not sure I’m there quite yet.”

“Do you want to hear my version of the story, then—the real version of what happened, from the beginning?”

“That’s why I wanted to catch you here, to finish what Joao couldn’t.”

“Ok. For starters, why don’t you lower your wand. As you can see, I’m unarmed and frankly it’s making me nervous.”

Eugenia hesitated, and then slowly lowered her arm. They stared at each other in tense silence for a moment, as if daring the other to make a sudden move.

“Thank you,” he said gruffly.

And that’s when he began to tell her everything.


	4. The Gryffindor Guys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In an attempt to socialize with her housemates, Eugenia ends up meeting Hogwarts' most eligible bachelor, a fed-up quidditch player, and two third years who solemnly swear they are up to no good.

**November 1973  
** **Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry**

 

Marta’s comments from dinner the other day continued to bother Eugenia. To somehow prove Marta wrong, she resolved to do her homework in the Gryffindor common room instead of the library that night after dinner, which up until then, she had made a point not to do.

Her preference of avoiding the common room during that time was not because it was an uncomfortable place, quite the contrary: it was a huge circular room covered with thick carpets, cushy chairs, and tapestries lining the stone walls, which at night were bathed in the warm light of an enormous fireplace. Empty, it was an introvert’s paradise, but it was rarely ever that way. At its peak hours, filled with gabbing students, it was hardly the place to sit alone with one’s thoughts at the end of a long day. So she left dinner early that night and headed straight for the tower during a time when she knew most students would still be in the Great Hall or at extracurriculars. She figured she could grab one of the coveted arm chairs by the fireplace and have a few quiet moments easing into the space before the tower became crowded and noisy again.

It was almost empty, and the fire cast a friendly glow that filled the whole room. Nestled in a chair by the fireplace as the sun dipped below the frosty horizon outside, Eugenia felt she could get used to this. But she was no more than two pages into her reading when she was politely interrupted by none other than Kingsley Shacklebolt: seventh year, head boy, and demi-god.

“Hi—Eugenia, right? I’m Kingsley Shacklebolt. I hope I’m not bothering you in the middle of something.”

“Not at all.” She closed her book and reached out to shake his hand, all the while imagining the look on Marta’s face when she tells her about this conversation she’s about to have with her Adonis. 

Most of what she knew about Kingsley she learned through Marta, who was madly in love with him. When it came to the objects of her intense affections, Marta had a tendency to exaggerate. Though from what she was able to gather from other more impartial sources, Marta’s glowing testimony was not far from the truth. He was supposedly top of his class, earning straight ‘O’s on his fifth-year exams. He exuded self-confidence, but never came off as pompous. He had an assertive but calm, natural way of speaking that put anyone at ease. Needless to say, he was extremely popular. This made Eugenia skeptical; people in a position of power who were too good at hiding their flaws always seemed to pay a higher price for them later on. Yet as he sat down in the chair next to hers and introduced himself with his deep, assuring voice and kind eyes, she could understand Marta’s infatuation.

“I just wanted to introduce myself and see how you were settling in. I’m sorry we haven’t had the chance to meet earlier," he said. "Things can get pretty chaotic around Hogwarts this time of year, so please know that I’m around if you need anything. And don’t worry,” he added, perhaps reading a subtle wariness in her expression, “I’ve told the other prefects to check in with your friends staying in their houses, so don’t feel too singled out."

“That’s very thoughtful, thank you,” replied Eugenia. She found Kingsley’s self-consciousness over his intentions being misunderstood as oddly endearing. “It can be overwhelming sometimes, but I think I’m getting the hang of things.” 

“Seems it," he said genuinely. With the introductions out the way, Kingsley seemed to relax a bit more.

“So, tell me: is it true that back in Brazil, you all attend classes in an ancient human sacrifice pyramid made of solid gold, guarded by an army of Peeves?” The twinkle in his eye and obviously ridiculous question told her he was mocking the way Hogwarts students embellished things about Castelobruxo.

She laughed. “You mean the Caipora? In some ways I suppose they are like your Peeves…times a hundred.”

“Don’t know how you deal with that. One poltergeist here is enough.”

“Headmistress says they’re a necessary evil to guard the school grounds from the more demonic Amazonian spirits,” she said casually, “but honestly I just think she hasn’t figured out a way to get rid of them. They’ve been there as long as the school has, probably longer.”

He nodded and looked at her curiously. “If you don’t mind me asking, what’s it like going to school with people from different countries who speak different languages? I mean, you’re not originally from Brazil, right?” 

She explained to him that as an Argentinian, she didn’t have a hard time fitting in as most of her peers could speak Spanish, but she and the rest of her non-Brazilian peers still had to pass in Portuguese proficiency by the end of their first year. Castelo had an incredibly diverse linguistic scene. In addition to Portuguese and Spanish, Guarani, Quechua, Mapuche, Maya, and Nahuatl were also commonly heard in the hallways. And those who were interested in studying or working abroad had to study additional languages; she had chosen English, not because it was the most exciting, but in her mind it was the most useful. Kingsley found Castelo’s polyglot student culture fascinating, and lamented that Hogwarts didn’t have better linguistic offerings. This made her like him more, as she didn’t know many other magical folk who had the same appreciation of languages that she did.

She was surprised at how easy he was to talk to. After a short while, he began telling her about his plans to become an auror.

Aurors were highly respected, but Kingsley’s motivations to become one were less about prestige and more ideological. In his view, the Death Eater movement posed the biggest threat to the future of wizarding kind. Their growing notoriety was such that even Eugenia had heard rumors about them back in Brazil, and in the few months she had been in Britain she was seeing increasing coverage of their crimes in the _Daily Prophet_ and other major papers. They were becoming more than just the fringe group of fanatics the ministry had previously dismissed them to be. They had declared a leader, were growing in numbers, and openly attacking muggles and muggle-borns for sport.

“They’re supremacists, see,” said Kingsley. “They believe muggles and any wizards closely affiliated with them are inferior. If they had their way, all muggles would be enslaved to serve wizards.” He shook his head. “It really is too bad that more people from these older wizarding families—like mine—aren’t doing more right now to stop them. They think because they’re ‘pureblood’ no one can touch them. But look at what happened to the Prewett brothers! If things keep going the way they are, no one will be safe. That’s why I want to go into the field as an auror.”

Just as their conversation had begun to take on a more candid tone, they heard the portrait swing open to let someone climb through the entrance. A tall, windswept-looking boy dressed in the scarlet robes of the Gryffindor quidditch team emerged from the portrait hole and hurried into the room with a wild look on his face. He stopped in the middle and looked around as if unsure of what to do next, before resigning to pace back and forth. He appeared to be arguing with himself. Kingsley and Eugenia exchanged bemused looks.

“Oi. You good, mate?” asked Kingsley, loudly enough to startle the boy out of his trance. As he approached, Eugenia recognized him as the tense-looking seventh year who almost collided with her in the library yesterday. He did not seem to recognize her, or perhaps was too distressed to even notice she was there.

He walked up to Kingsley and said, “Fletch wants to kill me.”

“Why? What did you do?”

“What did I do? You should be asking what he’s doing! Absolutely mental he is! We’re already up to six practices a week, and now he’s talking about two-a-days? All because he wants his bloody name on that bloody cup! Spent all of practice chewing us out about last match, acting like we ruddy lost to Ravenclaw on purpose just to spite him. He can’t even see it’s because he’s a…a.” He shook his head, apparently too agitated for words. “I…I just couldn’t take it anymore. I had to do it. Even if it means the cup. I’m willing to risk it. He needs to know I’m not going to kiss arse just because he’s captain.” He suddenly turned around and made a move towards the dormitory staircase. “I need to go, the rest of the team’s going to come through there any minute and I just can’t…”

“Hang on, Theo, what happened? Come on, man, if I have to deal with you and Fletch trying to murder each other in the dorm tonight I need to know what the bloody hell’s going on.”

Theo, with his back still to them, heaved a silent but visible sigh. He slowly turned around, but before he could say anything, the portrait hole exploded open.

“WOOD!” bellowed a thunderous voice, so loud that a group of timid second years studying in the far side of the room looked up from their books in fright.

Storming towards them was seventh year quidditch captain Thaddeus Fletcher, whose livid face glowed as scarlet as his robes.

Jaw firmly clenched, Theo Wood squared himself up to full height as he turned to face his team captain. He was of a sturdy build and taller than Fletcher by a few inches, though any advantage this would give him against Fletcher’s broader chest and enormous fists would be marginal at best.

“You’re not quitting the team,” Fletcher stated menacingly, drawing himself only inches from Wood’s face. “You can’t…not now. It’s our last year, Wood. Our last chance to win the cup. All those practices, training harder than ever...we’re closer now than we have been in years to beating those gits in Slytherin and your willing to blow all of that for what? What’s more important right now?” His furious tones were now tinged with desperation. “Just…just think about what you’re doing. To the team.”

“I have, Fletch. I’ve made up my mind, I’m resigning. Play Crowley instead. She’s good enough and she’s been eager to play a match for a while now…”

“Have you lost your mind? She’s a reserve _chaser_ , Wood. Chaser! Not the one with the bat. That’s your job, remember?” cried Fletcher, near bellowing again. “In case you’ve forgotten, we don’t have a reserve beater.”

At this point, Kingsley stepped in to attempt mediation between his two roommates, while Eugenia remained silently seated, watching the drama unfold. She began to tune out exactly what the three boys were saying, focusing more on how they were saying it. Her English was decent, but she still derived a certain fascination with watching people argue in native tongues different than her own. The swears, the idioms, and colloquialisms, flowing freely and naturally, in ways they don’t when most British people conversed with her, a foreigner. 

In the end, Kingsley was able to barter some sort of tenuous agreement between the two, where Wood would take the weekend to reconsider quitting, so long as Fletcher revised their training schedule. Neither boy seemed committed to upholding their end of the bargain, but at that point both were weary enough to let the argument dissipate for the time being.

They watched Fletcher storm up the stairs and as soon as he was out of sight, Wood sank into the empty armchair and put his head in his hands, seemingly sapped of all energy.

“You know, I don’t really care what you decide to do.” Kingsley said to him, after a few moments. “You have a point: it’s your last year, you’re not trying out for the pro league, and we’ve got more important things to think about soon…like getting jobs. I only told Fletch you’d reconsider because we’ve known him long enough to know that blindsiding him like the way you did never ends well…for anyone.”

“I know,” Theo acquiesced tiredly, continuing to run his hands over his ruffled dark-blond hair. “But I meant it when I said I’m done. Honestly, I’m rather excited by the idea of having all that time back to myself to focus on other things.”

“What do you plan to do, instead of quidditch?” It was the first thing Eugenia had said in the 20 minutes or so since Theo arrived and he looked up at her with a start, as if he were only now fully aware of her presence.       

Even Kingsley seemed to have temporarily forgotten she was there. “Where are my manners, you two haven’t officially met yet, have you? Eugenia, as you’ve probably figured out, this is Theodore Wood, in my year. Theo, Eugenia Rivas, one of the sixth-year exchange students from Castelobruxo.” Wood looked slightly dazed as he shook her hand. She could tell from his face he was trying to work out where he had seen her before. She decided now was not the time to bring up the library incident.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. “Sorry about all of that just now with Fletcher. He’s rather pissed with me right now,” he added unnecessarily.

She assured him the altercation did not put her off. He seemed like a frantic sort of fellow alright, but he at least had the guts to stand up for himself against the captain. 

“Right,” he continued, remembering her initial question. “Er, well, I’m thinking of going into architectural magic, so I would need NEWTs in herbology, transfiguration, potions, defense against the dark arts. I could really use the time to catch up on studying to pass my exams, and apply for apprenticeship after graduation.”

“That’s exciting,” said Eugenia. “You’ve heard of the Manaus Institute, no? They specialize in cultivating those self-defensive dwellings that grow from trees.”

“Oh yeah, I have actually!” said Theo, his expression lighting up. “They’re world renowned. That sounds like a dream, though I hear spots there are really tough to get into. But they really set up their apprentices to work anywhere…”

“Apply then. Nothing to lose, mate,” encouraged Kingsley, who himself was trying to break into an extremely competitive field.  
  
“I agree, it can’t hurt to look into it. Best to start learning Portuguese now, though,” she added.

“And you, do you know yet what you want to do after you’re done with school?” Theo asked her.

The three of them spoke lightheartedly of future plans for a while until the sound of the portrait swinging open yet again announced more bodies clambering through the entrance. This time it was two younger students, one of them wearing the same scarlet robes as Theo. He was talking animatedly to his lanky, dark-haired friend. 

“I’m serious, mate, think about it. You on the team. You’d be brilliant. I’ve seen you fly. Who needs Wood when…” the boy stopped mid-sentence when he saw Theo by the fireplace.

“Well, I best be going before the rest of the team shows up to flay me alive,” Theo sighed and stood up from his chair.

He then paused, as though a thought suddenly occurred to him. “I'm sorry I almost ran you over in the library the other day,” he said to Eugenia.

“Wear a bell next time, I’ll be able to hear you coming and stay out of the way,” she responded. She immediately regretted making such an uncharacteristically bold quip to this person she just met, but Theo's face broke into a broad grin. He had a surprisingly warm smile for someone capable of such a tense demeanor.

“See you around,” he told her, before clapping Kingsley on the shoulder and bounding off towards the boys’ staircase, leaving Eugenia hoping—with a sudden flushed feeling—that he meant it.

Her fleeting reverie was broken when Kingsley abruptly shouted, “Hey, Potter, Black, get over here!” addressing the two boys by the entrance, who glanced furtively at each other before approaching them.

“Did he tell you he quit the team?” the young quidditch player asked Kingsley, referring to Wood. "May God have mercy on his soul. There's no way Fletch isn't murdering him in his bed tonight."

“Yes, I know, Potter. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. McGonagall just told me that Filch caught your little gang out of bounds after hours again—seriously, hanging around the Whomping Willow like you’re having a bloody garden party! What gives? We can’t keep losing house points because of you.”

“It’s not our fault Filch is a nosy twat,” retorted the boy called Black. He spoke with a confident, almost cocky air, but even in the dim glow of the fire Eugenia could see his cheeks redden.

“That’s not the point. As Head Boy, I’m responsible for what happens in Gryffindor. Like hell we’re going to be out of the running for the house cup this year because of you two…”

“Easy, Shacklebolt. It won’t happen again. I promise,” said Potter, with unconvincing sincerity.

“Better not,” replied Kingsley, equally unconvinced, but glaring at them all the same as if daring them to do or say something otherwise.

A beat of awkward silence, and then: “So how do you like Hogwarts so far?”

It took Eugenia a moment to realize Potter was talking to her. “Yes, I really like it. I love exploring the castle, but I still get lost sometimes,” she said, slightly embarrassed she couldn’t find something more interesting to say.

“Happens to the best of us. Hogwarts has got all sorts of sneaky passages. Sirius here is an expert at finding new ways of getting around. He can show you all the shortcuts if you like, isn’t that right?” Potter playfully nudged his friend. Sirius Black looked at Potter like he wanted to stab him.

“What did we ruddy just say about all of this sneaking around nonsense. No more crawling around hidden passages. They’re hidden for a reason,” Kingsley scowled. “Now off, the both of you.”

Both boys visibly suppressed smirks, but didn’t object. Potter nodded amicably at Eugenia as he left, but Black turned around without a single glance in her direction.

Kingsley sighed as he watched them scamper up the stairs. “God, I’ve had enough of those two clowns. Been thinking of getting my hands on a Time Turner just to go back three years and make sure James Potter and Sirius Black get sorted into a different house."

“What do you think they’re doing?” she asked curiously. “By the…how did you call it…whomping tree?”

“Oh, who knows. And frankly I almost don’t care to know. Brilliant they are, for being just third years, I mean. I have to admit that they can do some pretty advanced stuff for their age. But unfortunately, they have a vendetta against anything that represents authority, which includes me. Although…it seems like Black’s got a soft spot for you. Perhaps he’d listen if you tried to talk some sense into him.” 

Eugenia shook her head and smiled, not knowing how else to respond. She did notice poor Sirius Black’s crimson face when James Potter offered him to show her around the castle. But the revelation that this third year she didn’t even know existed until tonight had noticed her enough to develop a crush, tore another hole in her imaginary invisibility cloak, the one swaddling her in the comforting illusion that at Hogwarts, she had the power to observe without being observed.    

She suddenly remembered the beautiful and strangely terrifying dark-haired girl in the Great Hall. “Kingsley, do you know if Sirius is related Bella in Slytherin, Bella Black?”

“Yeah, I think they’re cousins. Though from what I can tell, that’s something he’d rather not talk about,” he said grimly.

She wanted to ask Kingsley more questions about Bella and Sirius, but decided against it. After a short while, they bid each other good night. Not in a hurry to leave her place by the fire, Eugenia sat watching the glowing embers, feeling for the first time since she arrived, a sense of belonging in that room, in that house.

When she told Marta all the details from last night over breakfast the following morning, Marta could hardly contain herself that her friend had an in with Kingsley Shacklebolt.

“ _Olhe pra você_ , Euge’, hanging out with all of these Gryffindor boys. I knew it was just a matter of time,” said Marta wiggling her eyebrows, knowing it would annoy Eugenia. It did.

“This is the perfect chance though,” she pressed on before Eugenia could object. “You need to introduce me. Ask him to come to Hogsmeade with us this weekend.”

“Wouldn’t it be kind of weird and obvious that it’s a set-up if it’s just the three of us?”

“Tell him to bring a friend…Oh! Like the crazy guy you were just telling me about, the one who just quit the quidditch team? Wood. Ask him to bring Wood.”

“What? Why him?

“ _Meu deus_ , how is it obvious to me but not you.” Marta rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Because you like him.”


	5. The Agency

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sirius tells his side of the story and is offered a proper meal for the first time in ages. But when dinnertime's over, he begins to question whether he's there on his own free will.

**June 1994  
** **Casa Oscura**

 

Eugenia listened in stony silence as Sirius described the past two decades of his tragic life. 

He laid out in raw detail how Peter betrayed them all, resulting in the gruesome murder of his best friends at the hands of Lord Voldemort; he reenacted his confrontation with the traitor on that busy London street which ended with the violent deaths of 12 muggles; he revealed how he spent the last year hiding out in the Forbidden Forest disguised as a dog so he could keep tabs on Harry; he finally concluded with his most recent escape from the law on the back of a condemned hippogriff.

"So that's the gist of it," he said, panting slightly from his absurd and lengthy tale.

She continued to regard him with the same impassive expression. He wished she would say something; her lack of reaction was unnerving.

Finally, she spoke. “So, you’re telling me that Peter Pettigrew is literally _a rat_ now?”

“Correct.”

“ _Dios mio_. He could be anywhere.” A dreamy look crossed her face as she pondered the world's most dangerous criminal wandering the earth as a common rodent.

Sirius cleared his throat. “So, have I said enough to convince you, or are you still going to arrest me?” 

She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. “What you’re saying aligns with what Joao had. And if you think it was Dumbledore who let you go…”

“Harry’s got his father’s nerve, but there’s no way he broke me and Buckbeak out without Dumbledore’s help. Of that I’m sure. Write to him…if you need more proof.”

She bit her lip as she mulled this over. “I still have a lot of questions. But you don’t seem like a killer or a Death Eater to me, Sirius. Insane, maybe. But not a murderer.”

He let out a sigh of relief.

“Perhaps it’s unwise for me to tell you this, but I’m not a field officer like Joao was,” she admitted. “I’m just a legal counselor for the agency. I’m the one behind the desk all day. So even if I wanted to hunt you down and arrest you, I couldn’t. It would be way out of my jurisdiction…”

Sirius snorted. “You Agency people and your jurisdictions.”

She shrugged. “When I first started at IWIA, I used to imagine being an agent. Being able to travel around the world and investigate magical crimes for a living. It all seemed very exciting.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“The usual reasons: got married pretty early, started a family, settled down. I’ve got it all so I can’t complain, but a part of me wishes to break free of the routine once and a while, just an element of danger here and there.”

She remembered who she was talking to and winced. “Sorry, that was awfully tone-deaf. After all you’ve been through, I shouldn’t say stupid things like that...”

Her apology caught him off guard. He couldn’t remember the last time someone was worried about offending him.

“It’s ok. Well, you’re here now, confronting an alleged murderer. If this doesn’t count as an element of danger than I don’t know what does.”

She allowed him a small, wary smile.

“Would now be the right time to ask how the hell you get in and out of this place?” he asked. He no longer had the compass that served as his entrance token.

“I’m guessing you came in through the tree portal; that’s the usual way people get in when they first arrive. Behind the waterfall is a cave that leads to a tunnel that takes you below ground to the safehouse. We’re actually under the falls right now.”

“But if that’s how you got in, how come I didn’t notice? Seems like an oversight for a safehouse not to have some sort of alert system if someone’s trying to get in.”

“Ah…I have special access.”

“I thought only agents had access.”

“I don’t need to be an agent,” she looked slightly embarrassed now. “Because I’m married to the architect who designed it.”

“Er, wow,” was all he could say. He glanced over at the photo of T.H.W., the RAF pilot.

“Is your husband by any chance related to the bloke on the wall?”

Eugenia gave a short laugh. “As a matter of fact, yes. _That_ Theodore Wood was quite the extraordinary muggle, a fighter pilot during the Second World War. The one I married is his grandson, Theodore Wood the second.”

It was Wood, Jr., whom Sirius was reminded of when he first saw the picture. Theo Wood was a student four years above him at Hogwarts. They both lived in Gryffindor house, and that was pretty much the extent of what they had in common—other than falling for the same girl, he supposed. Theo played beater on the same quidditch team as James, who once described Wood as having “one hell of an arm, but half of a brain.”

Sirius figured that he must have grown the other half of his brain somewhere along the way, in order to end up with a high-stakes career designing safehouses for the IWIA, and a very attractive legal expert for a wife.

“If I recall, the night I met Theo was the same night I met you,” said Eugenia.

“I remember that, actually. The night before, James and I had just lost an ungodly number of house points for—well let’s just say it probably wasn’t the first time that week we had gotten caught doing something we shouldn’t—and I remember going back to the common room the next evening and getting hounded by Kingsley Shacklebolt. James and I had a laugh about it later, but I remember how humiliated I felt, being scolded like a kid in front of…well, you. But I was a bit of a git back then, so I probably deserved it.”

“For the rest of the semester after that, though, you were really quite sweet to me. In little ways, like offering to help carry my books, lending me quills, giving me your seat at the table…”

Sirius hated that he could feel himself blush. “Was I really like that? Well, I guess I was trying to make up for my less-than-stellar first impression. And I didn’t know that you and Wood were a thing.”

“Would it have made a difference if you knew?”

He grinned, “No, I suppose not.”

The entire time they had been talking Eugenia stood in the doorway of study, not daring to get closer than 10 feet from him. She finally shifted her stance and nodded towards the kitchen.

“You must be hungry.” she said.

This reminded Sirius that he hadn’t had a proper meal in over a week. He and Buckbeak had been eating nothing but whatever fruits, small animals, and occasional insects from the rainforest they could find. Edible things grew abundantly here, but he longed for a meal that he didn’t have to climb a tree for or kill first.

From the door way, she motioned for him to leave the room first, and then followed him out. _Looks like she’s still reluctant to turn her back to me, even after our heart-to-heart._

Like the rest of the place, the kitchen was tidy and retro, with shiny chrome appliances that he’d only seen before in the muggle catalogues he used to secretly read when he was a child.

“What are you in the mood for?” she asked him.

“Like, anything?”

“Anything.”

“Honestly, I’ve had a hankering for fried chicken,” he said on a whim, not sure what was going to happen next. It didn’t look like she was about to cook him something.

Eugenia opened a cabinet and took out what looked like an ordinary recipe box out, flipped through it and selected a card. She then placed the card into the small, vintage-looking oven, closed the door and waited. Sirius was no expert in muggle cooking techniques, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t one of them. After about 10 seconds, she opened the oven to remove a full platter of fried chicken.

His eyes widened. “That was wicked.”

They sat down across from each other at the small table, and Sirius dug into the platter immediately. Eugenia had conjured plates, napkins, and silverware, but he grown accustomed to eating everything with his hands. He didn’t care if he looked like a savage in front his former crush, this was the best meal he’d had in over a decade.

As he ate, she told him more about the safehouse. The IWIA contracted Theodore Wood to build a bunker in a remote tract of rainforest in southern Roraima during the height of the wizarding war, intended to be a place to hide Death Eater deserters and their families in exchange for intel on Voldemort. However, the war ended soon after it was completed, and the safehouse remained mostly unused. It was retired from active service in the mid-80s.

“Theo didn’t want the space to go to waste,” she said, helping herself to a wing. “So he began using it for personal storage. After his father passed away, his mum, a witch—she was a Ross actually before she married—had a hard time seeing all these reminders of his muggle life, so Theo brought them here. Practically everything in the study belonged to John—his dad.”

Sirius had no idea who the Rosses were, but he nodded along anyway. “Seems like overkill for a storage space, though.”

Eugenia sighed, “I know. But once he got started, he couldn’t stop. He began renovating the interior to look like his childhood home in Leith. I was worried he was becoming obsessed, but I think it was his way of working through his grief or something.”

An unsettling thought suddenly struck him. “Do I have to worry about your husband showing up? I’m going to take a wild guess that he doesn’t know I’m here.”

“No, not anytime soon. He rarely comes out here now. He’s back home in Scotland where most of his work is these days.”

“Where does he think you are?”

“In Rio on business. Which is true, I’m going there tomorrow to take care of some IWIA affairs.”

“You’re just taking a slight detour hundreds of miles north through the Amazon.”

“Exactly,” she said with a sly smile. 

When there were just bones left on the platter, she vanished it with a wave of her wand.

“I have to go, Sirius,” she said abruptly, standing up. He nodded.

They walked into the living room, and stood looking at each other from the same awkward distance they maintained the entire night. He had no clue what sort of good-bye gesture would be appropriate given their circumstances, so he was relieved when she spoke first:

“It’s good to see you again, though I wish it was under better circumstances.”

“Likewise,” he said. “Will you be back?”

“I’ll come by to check on things in about a week. I’ll bring newspapers so you have an idea of what’s going on out there.”

“Newspapers would be excellent, thank you.” Then he thought of something. “Just one thing before you go. Could you show me where the entrance is? To the tunnel that goes above ground.”

Her smile faltered a bit. “I’m afraid I can’t give you access to the tunnel just yet.”

Sirius was dumbstruck. “What? Why not? Eugenia, you can’t just leave me locked in here.”

“I don’t intend to…not for long anyway,” she said calmly, but he noticed her hand twitched towards her wand. “I’m sorry, Sirius, I know this is difficult for you. But you’ll be safe here until I figure out some way for you to move freely above ground without being noticed.”

 _Noticed by who?_ He thought wildly. _There’s nothing but forest for hundreds of miles_. _Perhaps this really is a trap…_

Sirius suddenly began to laugh, in spite of himself. “I’m really such an idiot, thinking some stories about the good old days and a few pieces of chicken are enough to make us friends. You really had me fooled…”

“Please understand what I’m risking by just letting you hide here,” she hissed, the coldness with which she first addressed him back in her voice. “If anyone finds out I’m harboring Sirius Black in a decommissioned IWIA bunker, _I’m_ probably going to go to Azkaban. So I’m asking that you stay here until I figure out what to do next. I’ll be back before the end of the month, and we can discuss this further then. I promise.”

“Eugenia—” he began to retort. But it was too late, she had vanished.

\---

 

 **The Next Evening**  
**International Wizarding Intelligence Agency**  
Brazil Headquarters, Rio de Janeiro

 

Eugenia Wood-Rivas looked out the window from her desk at the magnificent view of Rio at night. From across the bay, its thousands of city lights appeared to connect together like lava between the dark smoky mountains, flowing into the rippling surface of the sea.

The view was real, but the window wasn't. The IWIA’s Rio de Janeiro office was located deep inside of a mountain on one the smaller islands just off of the coast. The enormous windows lining the walls of the office were really mirrors enchanted to show a projection of the outside world.

It was getting late and she still had pile of papers in front of her that needed review, but she couldn’t focus on them. The whole day her head was full of the events from the previous night. She couldn’t believe that less than 24 hours ago, she had been sitting across a table from Sirius Black, the most-wanted wizard in the world, eating chicken.

Her assistant bustled in with the news she was waiting for. “There’s a call from London on hold for you on Floo channel 3, senhora”

“That’s the secured channel, right?”

“Sim, senhora. The password is ‘Varápidos”

Eugenia suppressed an eye roll. Of course the new password was a racing broom; quidditch was all anyone talked about during World Cup season.

“Obrigada, Luisa. That’s all for tonight, feel free to go home now.”

When she was alone, Eugenia walked up to the large marble fireplace in corner of the room, and lit a fire with her wand.

“Varápidos,” she said.

There was a small burst of flames that died down to reveal the grinning face of Kingsley Shacklebolt in the fire.

“ _Ola que tal_ , Eugenia?” said Kingsley.

“ _Boa noite,_ Kingsley _. Estou bem,_ _e você_?

“ _Muito bem_.”  Kingsley sighed, "Well, that’s the extent of my Portuguese, so I won’t make you suffer through it anymore. Anyway, sorry I couldn’t get on the line earlier. The auror office has been swamped with all these preparations for the World Cup.”

“No worries. I imagine it’s pretty crazy over there right now. It’s been busy here, too.”

“Yeah, it looks like they’re having you work late. I was surprised to be getting a call from Rio at this hour. Theo still back home?

“Yes, he is.”

“I’ve been meaning to check in on you both sometime. How are the kids? Oliver just graduated, yeah? Congratulations.”

“Yes, thank you. He’s quite excited.”

“But I reckon you didn’t call me on an IWIA secured channel at this hour just to shoot the breeze, am I right?”

“Right. I have something important to tell you.”    

“Ok. Let me have it.”

Eugenia took a deep breath. “I know where Sirius Black is.”


	6. The Serpent's Circle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joao is invited to join Slytherin's elite, drawing suspicion from his friends. Little do they know that it's all according to a higher plan.

**Early December, 1973  
** **Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry**

 

Joao Lobo Dias assessed the situation before him. The Slytherin dungeon was unusually empty that evening, apart from Silas Avery and Rowan Mulciber, who were glaring at him menacingly from across the table. They were two big, mean-looking fifth-years who did not like to be crossed. The clock was ticking; he knew he had to do something quick. But one mistake, and he could lose it all.

Joao took in a deep breath through his nose. “Knight to D6,” he said.

The white knight moved across the board, unsheathed its tiny sword, and struck Avery’s rook, sending it flying off the table.

“Checkmate.”

“Dammit!” cried Avery, slamming his fist on the table, causing several of the chess pieces to lose their balance and stumble out of place.

Mulciber roared with laughter. “Face it, mate, you’re never going to beat the Brazilian.”

“Well, I had a fat chance with you over my shoulder giving shoddy advice.” Avery growled at Mulciber. They exchanged heated stares for a moment until Joao interrupted.

“Now, now, gentlemen, no need to beat yourselves up. You are looking at a three-time, junior international grandmaster, here. No one’s defeated me at wizard’s chess since I was five.”

Mulciber grinned threateningly. “Don’t get too cocky, Lobo Dias. Unless you want to be a grandmaster at getting an arse kicking.”

“I can’t say I’m familiar with that sport, Rowan. Although I heard you gave an excellent demonstration of it last week when you tried hex Bella’s cousin in the courtyard. Never seen a bloke take so many counter-jinxes at once from a group of…what were they…third years?"

Now it was Avery’s turn to laugh. Outraged, Mulciber stood up and pointed his wand at Joao’s face.

“Watch it, _hombre_. I’ll teach you to think twice before being smart with me...”

Joao looked up at him with an apathetic smile, completely unfazed by the threat. Red-faced and fuming, Mulciber eventually sat back down without cursing his face off. Mulciber wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but he knew better than to try anything on Joao, a rumored practitioner of Amazonian black magic. These assumptions were completely unfounded, borderline prejudiced, but Joao decided not to deny them.

A few minutes later the entrance portrait swung open, and in walked seventh-years Lucius Malfoy, Bella Black, and Ada Parkinson.

“What are you lot doing?” asked Malfoy with a bored sneer, as the group strode up to their table.

“They’re playing chess,” drawled Bella, barely looking at them, choosing to examine her lacquered nails instead. “Like a bunch of first-years.”

Ada snickered while Avery and Mulciber looked down, embarrassed. Only Joao greeted them with polite interest. “I take it you three just met with Slughorn. How did it go?” he asked.

“Not well, I’m afraid.” Malfoy's sneer became more pronounced. “Seemed to think our proposal to ban mudbloods from the Slug Club was too…exclusionary.”

“The old man’s gone soft in my opinion,” scoffed Ada. “Doesn’t want to upset Dumbledore, the great muggle-lover.”

“Personally, I don’t care to partake in any club that considers mudbloods among the ‘best and brightest’ at Hogwarts,” said Bella coolly. “Which is why the three of us are officially starting our own club. Or, ‘society,’ I should say.”

“Oh? And what will this new society call itself?”

Bella smiled slyly at Joao. “We’re thinking of calling it ‘The Serpent’s Circle’, in honor of our great house. Though, seeing as us three—” she indicated herself, Ada, and Malfoy—“are leaving at the end of the year, the Circle will have more of a future focus, beyond Hogwarts, if you know what I mean.”

Joao nodded in comprehension. He was pretty sure ‘future focus’ meant recruiting future Death Eaters.

“Only the best students of true wizarding heritage will be invited to join,” added Malfoy.

“And the Circle will bring together the type of future leaders our kind needs, if we ever want to take the Ministry back from those muggle-rights spouting shills,” spat Bella.

“And we’re going to have a party!” squealed Ada, unable to hide her excitement any longer. Malfoy and Bella glared at her, and she shrank back.

“Yes, our initiation event will be a _soiree_ I will host in London over the holiday. I expect the three of you to be there.” Bella looked haughtily at Joao, Avery, and Mulciber.

“Me as well?” asked Joao. “Even though I’m just here on exchange?”

“Oh, Joao,” Bella pronounced his name with an almost seductive purr. “Of course I want you there. We need to show that our cause is being represented abroad as well.” She regarded him with narrowed eyes, “You do want to join us, don’t you?”

He gave her a slow, knowing smile. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Excellent. Expect a formal invite shortly. I’m going to have to write to my uncle first to be sure we can have it at Grimmauld Place. More space.”

She gave Joao one last provocative glare, before sweeping away towards the dorms with Ada trailing behind.

As soon as she had gone, Avery turned excitedly to the three other boys. “Blimey, a party. _At Bella’s house_.”

“Well, her uncle’s technically,” said Mulciber.

“Doesn’t matter. The event of the year, this is. We’re going to meet all sorts of important people there I bet.”

Joao didn’t doubt that. He found these old British wizarding families and their archaic form of pureblood supremacy to be fascinating, and from what he gathered, Bella’s family, the House of Black, was one of the most ancient and influential among them. The Malfoys were another well-established family. Avery and Mulciber, while pureblooded enough to be accepted among Slytherin’s elite, did not have the same prestige attached to their names.

“Do you think we need to bring dates?” asked Avery, trying not sound obviously anxious.

Malfoy snorted. “It’s an initiation not a bloody cotillion. Besides, what girls would agree to go with you two goons.” He glared smugly at Avery and Mulciber.

“Well, who are you bringing then,” Mulciber shot back.  Malfoy scowled at him. “I mean, hypothetically, if you were to bring someone,” he added hastily.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m thinking of asking Bella’s sister to accompany me.”

“Narcissa? _Nice_.” The two fifth-years grinned ghoulishly at each other until Malfoy shot them a sharp warning look.

“Hey, maybe Lobo Dias can ask his two lady friends from Castelobruxo if they want to come with us," Mulciber leered. "I wouldn’t mind playing ‘Circle’ the ‘Serpent’ with the Rivas girl, if you know what I mean.” 

Avery cracked up while Joao merely grunted and shook his head at Mulciber’s gross overtures. He found Mulciber to be a truly repulsive human being, but he decided now was not the time to become defensive. He had worked hard to gain their trust.

Malfoy, to his credit, said, “That’s disgusting, Mulciber, and no, it’s by invite only. No outside guests unless they’re approved by Bella or me.”

That was all fine with Joao, as he could not imagine Eugenia, Marta, or Victor wanting to go to this Young Death Eaters Meet-Up weakly fronting as a holiday party. He spent the rest of the evening mentally rehearsing how he was going to explain this to them.

He got the chance to see Victor's reaction the next morning over breakfast, when his friend asked him what his plans were for the upcoming holiday break.

“Going to London,” said Joao casually, taking a bite of his toast and continuing to scan the _Daily Prophet_ in front of him.

“Really? Who do you know in London?” asked Victor curiously.

“Friends of mine invited me. I think it’ll be a good way to see more of the country.”

“And would these friends happen to be those Slytherins I see you hanging out with all the time?”

“Yes, they are.” Joao put his paper down and looked at Victor. “Is that a problem?” he asked neutrally.

“No…well, it’s just that,” Victor seemed to struggle to find the right words, "I mean, I know the point of this program is to make friends with people in our houses and all, and you seem to doing a really good job at that…like, a really good job…”

“What’s your point, Vic?”

“I just—there’s just something off about that whole house, that crew in particular. I don’t like them, Joao. I get really bad vibes from them, like _evil_ vibes.”

Joao let out a short laugh. “Meu Deus, Vic. You think they’re evil because of their _vibes_? You need spend less time with that Xenon kid.”

“His name’s Xeno—no ‘n’—and the reason why I think they’re evil isn’t just because they creep me out; it’s because I heard rumors that they’re…” Victor leaned in and whispered in English, “… _Death Eaters._ ” 

Joao gave another dismissive chuckle and resumed reading the paper. Victor was not amused.

“Don’t tell me you’re becoming one of them,” said Victor darkly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I think they’ve got you hoodwinked, or brainwashed—pick one! You’re not like them, you don’t believe in all that pureblood crap, right? I’m worried about you, man. Whatever hold they’ve got on you, you need to find a way out.”

“No one’s got any hold over me, Vic,” said Joao coolly, though Victor was starting to irritate him. “I’m not joining a cult, I’m just going to London on holiday. I came here to learn about another wizarding culture and meet some new people; that’s all I’m doing. Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

The ‘not joining a cult’ part was a slight lie, as he was going to attend what was described as an initiation night, but everything else he said was mostly true.

_“Mira, pendejo.”_ Victor jammed his index finger into the table for emphasis. “ _Esos tipos son locos, ¿C_ _ómo_ _no lo ves?_ You’re getting yourself into some messed up shit, man, I’m telling you.”

Joao let Victor rant at him in both Spanish and Portuguese for some time, while he continued to read his paper, giving Victor the occasional one-word answer or noncommittal shrug. Perhaps it was better this way, he thought, for Victor to believe he had truly accepted his place among the Slytherins. It would prompt fewer questions from his naturally suspicious housemates about where his loyalties lay.

When he saw Eugenia and Marta enter the Great Hall, he folded his newspaper and rose from the table. “Nice catching up with you, Vic. Gotta go send a few letters before class.” He walked away before Victor could say another word.

“Hey, where are you going in such a hurry, Joaozinho?” called Marta as he walked by.

“Owlery. See you later.” That last thing he needed right now was for Marta to join in on the intervention.

Later that afternoon, he went back to his dorm to retrieve a book and found a black envelope lying on his bed. He opened it and pulled out a matching black card, on which spindly silver ink began to form a message:

_Bellatrix Druella Black,_  
Founder and President of The Serpent’s Circle  
for the Advancement of Pureblood Society,  
Requests  
 **Joao Carlos Lobo Dias**  
to join the ranks of new Knights of Walpurgis  
and celebrate the holidays  
at the Home of Orion and Walburga Black  
 **12 Grimmauld Place, London  
7 o’clock  
24 December **  
 **in the year of our Dark Lord, 1973**  
Drinks and hors d'oeuvres will be served.

_You have ten more seconds to memorize the details of this message._

The message suddenly caught fire. Joao let the piece of paper fall from his hand, and he watched it smolder up before it hit the bed.

What a strange invitation. It halfway toned down any obvious references to Death Eaters, but referred to the guests as the new 'Knights of Walpurgis:' wasn't that the name of Voldemort’s first generation of followers?

In a notebook, Joao quickly scrawled down the time, date, and address of the event before he could forget. He then walked around the dorm, carefully checking to make sure no one else was around.

When he was absolutely sure he was alone, he took out his wand and said, “Expecto Patronum.”

A sleek, silver ocelot burst forth from the end. The cat bounded around the room before turning obediently to Joao.

“Deliver the following message to the Order of the Phoenix,” he commanded. The silver feline waited patiently.

He cleared his throat and began to dictate: “You’re not going to believe where I’m spending Christmas Eve…”


	7. The Menagerie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A prisoner in Casa Oscura, Sirius watches TV to pass the time and makes some disturbing connections.

**June 1994  
** **Casa Oscura**

 

_A perfect illusion. They had us seeing just what we wanted to see._

Captain Sirius Black paces back and forth in the glass cage. He should have known the distress signal from Telos IV was a trap to lure him and his crew to this wasteland. Now he’s trapped deep underground on this alien world, being kept as breeding stock for a new race of Telosian slaves. On the other side of glass wall, his captor, Kingsley Shacklebolt, is smiling at him ominously, his massive brain throbbing as he uses his super-telepathic powers to change the scene around him at will.

_They can create illusions out of a person's own thoughts, memories, and experiences, even out of a person's own desires. Illusions just as real and solid as this table top and just as impossible to ignore._

You’re not real, Sirius shouts at the woman in the short, sparkly dress following him around his cell. You can’t be, you’re just a part of the deception!

Oh, but I am real! cries Eugenia, clinging to the sleeve of his Starfleet uniform. I am as real as you wish me to be. I can be anyone you’ve ever dreamed of, give you anything you want…

Oh yeah? Well you can start by telling me how to get out of this mind trap! He spat, pulling his arm out of her grip.

He approaches the glass opposite to where Kingsley stands leering at him. I need to get back to the Enterprise, my crew needs me! The Telosian merely continues to observe him in eerie silence. Sirius continues to yell at him angrily, banging on the window. Cut this mind control bullshit and bring me back to reality, now!

Kingsley’s smile darkens. As you wish, he says. Suddenly the high-tech Telosian cage vanishes and Sirius is alone in his grimy cell in Azkaban, being backed into a corner by a towering dementor that’s slowly removing its hood to reveal…

 

Sirius woke with a start. The living room was dark except for the glow of the television screen. He had dozed off on the couch again. The TV was the small retro kind with rabbit ears, and it only played programs from the ’60s. He had fallen asleep during a marathon of  _Star Trek._

“Stupid dream,” he muttered, trying to shake off the bizarre images of dream Kingsley with a massive brain. No wonder muggles say that watching too much TV makes you go soft in the head. He couldn’t bear to sit through another episode, but he was too lazy to get up and turn off the set.

Today marked one week since his arrival at casa oscura. Eugenia would be back any day now. Thinking about her made him uneasy. The fact remained that as long as he was locked up here, he was at her mercy. Nonetheless, he was anxious for her to show up. He had spent the past several days preparing for her return, and he had a lot of questions.

The room around him was as impeccably tidy as the day he arrived. The appliances and surfaces gleamed, not a fingerprint or smudge in sight. Though he was the only one there, Sirius could take no credit for the upkeep of this place. In fact, on the first night, he tried to destroy it.

After Eugenia left, he was certain he had been duped. He had gone into the kitchen that night and half-sarcastically asked it to make him a drink. When he turned around he found a bottle of Ogden’s Old Firewhiskey on the table. Half a bottle of Ogden’s Old later, he pulled the nine-iron out of the bag of golf clubs in the study and began to try to break through the wall of the living room. His drunk self reasoned that if Eugenia wasn’t going to show him the way out, he would make his own way out, even if it meant tunneling through an unknown depth of earth with nothing but his bare hands and a golf club. But underneath the layers of plywood and plaster was a foundation of solid rock; he would need far more than fists, paws, or clubs to dig through that. Out of drunken frustration, he bashed the television screen in with the nine-iron, before taking his dog form and tearing apart the couch with his teeth.

He must have blacked out afterwards, because he woke up hours later in the bedroom, without any recollection of how he got there. His blinding hangover reminded him of the night before, but when he went to investigate the damage in the living room, it looked as though nothing had ever happened. The room was spotless: the wall, the television, the couch bore no signs of having been smashed with a golf club or chewed up by a giant dog. It was as though a team of house elves had snuck in and cleaned up the place while he was asleep.

After that night, Sirius resolved to take a different approach. No more drinking and flying off the handle. Eugenia or whoever she was would return, and he needed to be ready. Over the past several days, he methodically learned every inch of the house, searching for clues as to whatever this place was and how it worked, taking a mental inventory of every object, carefully leafing through the old files in her father-in-law's replica study.

Seven days had passed, and now all he had to do was wait and hope that she would keep her promise. He honestly didn’t know what he would do if she didn’t come back.

He had turned on the TV for some distraction and fell asleep watching reruns of _Star Trek_. He must have been out for a few hours, because when he awoke he was already on the final episode of the season. On the screen, a big-headed Telosian was bidding farewell to Kirk.

_Captain Pike has an illusion, and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant._

“Beam me up, Scotty,” whispered a voice in his ear, nearly causing him to jump out of his seat.

Eugenia had appeared out of nowhere, sitting next to him on the couch.

“Sorry, I couldn't resist,” she snickered.

“Eugenia, good to see you again.”

“I told you I’d be back.” She turned to him and smiled. “This is something you don't see everyday: Sirius Black, one of the most infamous wizards of our time, binge watching _Star Trek_.”

“Tell your husband he needs to update the entertainment in this place,” he grumbled.

“What are you talking about? This is some classic programming. Television these days just isn’t the same.”

“I suppose I wouldn’t know. Never owned a set. My Pureblood-or-Die mother would have had an aneurysm if I installed a television at Grimmauld Place.”

She nodded sympathetically. “How funny, though, that ‘The Menagerie’ was on right when I got here.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Because this place is actually some twisted projection of my fantasies, and I’m actually locked up in a cage while big-headed aliens run experiments on me?”

“No, because it was my favorite episode, you nutcase,” she quipped. He remained impassive.

“To be honest, given everything I’ve seen here, I haven’t ruled out that possibility.”

“And what possibility is that exactly?”

“That none of this is real, and you’re just an illusion.”

She looked at his grave face and started cracking up. “You’ve _really_ been watching too much television.”

He gave in and smiled. There was something very different about her. The Eugenia he met a week ago looked like she had been trudging through the jungle and wouldn’t get closer than ten feet from him. Now she was dressed as if she were at a party, sitting so close to him their knees nearly touched, her body language relaxed.

Still giggling, she leaned in and Sirius caught a pleasant waft of perfume. “Am I really your Vina, Sirius?” she purred.

“I sure hope not. She was just some hag the aliens possessed Pike into believing was a beautiful woman, so they would shag and start a new race of human slaves.”

“But they ended up together in the end, no?”

“Yeah, but in doing so they chose to live a lie.”

“Who's to say that the illusion was less true than reality? The only difference was that in one they would be happy, and in the other they would continue to suffer. If you could chose, wouldn't you have chosen the first one, regardless if it were 'real' or not?”

Sirius eyed her warily. “You didn’t really come here to have a philosophical debate about _Star Trek_ , did you?”

She shook her head, grinning. “You’ll have to forgive me: I was raised by muggles so I have soft spot for the series.”

Her dark eyes looked him up and down. “You’ve been taking care of yourself I see.” 

He suddenly felt warm in the face. That much was true. While she was gone, Sirius had given himself the first haircut and shave he had in over a decade, and took several hot showers to scrub off the years-worth of dirt covering his skin. He had found a change of clean clothes in the bedroom closet that fit him surprisingly well. The face he saw in the mirror still looked thin, pale, and worn, but had begun to resemble the handsome man he used to be.

“I’ve cleaned myself up a bit. You haven’t exactly left me with much else to do here. And what’s your reason for…all of this?” He motioned towards her outfit. She wore a simple but flattering navy-blue dress with a low neckline and an A-line cut that ended just above the knee.

She looked down as if she just realized what she was wearing. “Oh, this old thing?” She smoothed out her skirt self-consciously. “I just got out of a work function. Our new recruits just completed their field training. We were celebrating.”  

He eyed her high heels, skeptical. “You look lovely, though it doesn’t seem like the most practical attire for hiking through the Amazon.”

“Well, you’re on IWIA property and I happen to work for the IWIA. I have means of getting around that don’t involve hiking through hundreds of miles of rainforest.” She gave him another approving look . “You look good, too. Much more like the Sirius I remember from before.”

“Don’t think I did any of this to impress you.”

“Of course not. Why would I think that?”

She had clearly warmed up to him, to the point where it was starting to feel like they were on a charmingly awkward first date. He was sorry to have to kill the mood.

“Because it seems like you’re trying to…seduce me or something.”

She gave a short laugh and glared at him. “You think because I’m dressed up and not pointing a wand in your face this time that I’m trying to _seduce_ you? I know you were behind bars for a while and perhaps you’re a little rusty with women, but that’s a bit presumptuous.”

His face grew hot. “Look, I may not have been with a woman in over a decade, but I know when one’s sending me signals.”

“Like hell you do,” she scoffed, but her eyes glinted playfully. “And tell me, why would I risk everything I have and go through all this trouble to sleep with you? I’m quite happy with my marriage.”

“Maybe because I’m that…how did you say it before…‘element of danger’ you crave in your stable but boring life?” he said, the words coming out more harshly than he meant them to. “And speaking of your husband…”

He got up, turned on the lights and switched off the TV, and disappeared into the office. He came back out a few seconds later with a newspaper, and threw it down on the coffee table in front of her.

It was an issue of _The Times_ from November, 1981. The front-page headline read: ‘London gas main explosion kills 12. City under investigation.’ It was the muggle coverage of the murders he was convicted of.

“This is what I really wanted to talk to you about. Found it in a desk drawer. Even though we both know the Ministry fabricated the part about the gas main, it’s fascinating what the muggle papers covered that the _Prophet_ didn’t. For example, I didn’t know the names of the 12 muggles I allegedly killed until I read this.”

She stared silently at the headline looking puzzled, as if she had never seen it before.

He watched her face carefully. “Why didn’t you tell me that Theo Wood’s father was one of the victims?”

He waited but she didn’t answer, continuing to look dumbstruck at the newspaper. He grabbed it, flipped to the page showing the names and pictures of the victims, and held it up for her to see, pointing to ‘John Oliver Wood, 51, of Leith.’ “This is him, isn’t it? Says here he was a lawyer: matches the law degree I found in there”—he jerked his head towards the study.

She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out.

“Answer me, goddammit! Tell me why you’re keeping me in this grief palace for your muggle father-in-law, when I was sentenced to life without parole for his death—”

“Alright!” she cried. “Put that away, please.” He put down the paper. She looked up at him intently from the sofa. Her face looked pained, but her eyes were dry.

“I didn’t tell you the whole truth, but that doesn’t mean everything I told you was a lie.” She sighed. “I didn’t mention that John was one of Peter’s victims because I…I…didn’t want you to know that I had a personal connection to your case.”

It was morbidly satisfying to hear her call them ‘Peter’s victims’ instead of ‘your victims.’ “If you truly believed I didn’t kill him, why did you feel the need to hide that?” he asked more gently.

“To protect myself, I suppose. You saw the worst of that horrible day, I get that, but even for me, it’s difficult to talk about. I’m used to skirting around it by now. Theo and I never even told our children that their granddad was murdered that day. They think it was a car crash. My oldest, he was only five when it happened and we didn’t want to frighten him with the truth.”

“So…that would make him, what, eighteen now and he still doesn’t know? You can’t cover something like that up forever.” He had trouble imagining Eugenia as the mother of an adult son; she certainly didn’t look the part.

“If you were a parent, Sirius, you’d understand why you have to lie sometimes to protect your kids. Losing John was difficult enough as it was. We didn’t want Oliver to grow up with the added burden of believing that—forgive me—Sirius Black was the reason he doesn’t have a grandfather anymore. Especially now that half of Britain is still out looking for you.”

And there it was. A reminder that he, Sirius, after Lord Voldemort, was the boogeyman of an entire generation of wizarding children raised in the aftermath of the war. The only one who knew he wasn’t a monster was his own godson.

Thinking about Harry, Sirius decided to launch an appeal to Eugenia’s maternal side.

“Eugenia, Harry is the closest thing I’ll ever have to a son. And right now, he’s on his own while Pettigrew is still on the loose. I came here to wait out the worst of the storm, but once the search quiets down, I need to go back to England. I promised Harry I’d return.”

“I know, Sirius. And I want to help you do that. Trust me, I do. But if you go back now, you will be caught. Kingsley Shacklebolt is organizing a very thorough effort…”

“Ha, of course he is. Good old Kingsley. Bet he leapt at the chance to lead the search,” he grunted. Before he left England, he had gotten his hands on a discarded issue of the _Prophet_  which detailed the new and improved 'Sirius Black Taskforce 2.0'. The story featured a large picture of Shacklebolt, the Ministry's top auror, looking superior as ever with his arms folded across his broad chest and a dark glint in his eyes, which seemed to be watching Sirius no matter how he turned the page.

She swiftly got up from the couch and stood face to face with him in the middle of the room. “Then you should understand why it’s too dangerous for you to go back or even contact Harry at this point. They’re leaving no stone unturned this time,” she said sharply.

“He’ll worry if he doesn’t hear from me, or worse, he’ll go out looking for me. Please, I need to reach him somehow, even if just to let him know I’m fine.”

Her expression softened. “Let me deliver whatever message you want to Harry, then. I’ll make sure it gets to him safely. It won’t be intercepted by the Ministry, and he won't even know it was me.”

Despite all of his senses telling him otherwise, he wanted to trust her. Everything about her seemed so genuine.

He took in the sight of her standing before him. She was taller than he remembered; with heels on she was nearly his height. But he never forgot that dress. He had recognized it as soon as he saw her. She looked as beautiful wearing it now as she did wearing it that Christmas Eve back in 1973. He was surprised to see her there that fateful night, in his house, standing off to the side of the drawing room, looking out of place amidst the crowd of Bella’s most despicable friends. He wanted to approach her then, but something or someone distracted him, and when he went to look for her, she was gone.

And here she was now, two decades later, a vision from his past sent to rescue him from his lonely present.

“Why are you going through all this trouble to help me?” he asked.

“Because you’ve suffered long enough by yourself, Sirius. For something you didn’t do. I see that clearly now.”

The look she was giving him was one he thought he’d never see again in a woman’s eyes. His throat went dry. He hated how she made him feel like a nervous, lovestruck teenager again, and yet that familiar ache of anticipation in the pit of his stomach was exhilarating all the same.

As she moved towards him, closing the space between them, Sirius remained silently still. In his heart he knew it was all a lie, but in that moment he was willing to give himself over to it—to her—completely.

“You don’t have to go through this alone anymore,” she murmured before pressing her lips against his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter and the italicized quotes are from the 'The Menagerie' (1966), episodes 11 & 12 of Season 1 of Star Trek.


	8. The Three Broomsticks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the last Hogsmeade trip of the term, Joao plays fifth-wheel at the Three Broomsticks and later meets the mysterious 'Gopher.' Eugenia reveals the dark secret she's been hiding all term.

**December, 1973  
Hogsmeade**

 

The attractive barmaid at the noisy Three Broomsticks pub approached Joao with his drink and a smile. “You’re not from around here, are you, love?" 

“Thanks,” he said, taking the hot cup of mulled mead gratefully. “What gave me away, my accent?”

She nodded towards the schoolbag hanging off the back of his chair. Embossed on the front pocket was the crest of Castelobruxo. “That’s a foreign school, isn’t it?”

“Sure is. You’ve got a good eye.” 

She must be new here; he didn’t recall seeing her the last time he was at the pub a few weeks ago. She was young and very pretty, with a round pleasant face framed by golden curls.

“You tend to notice things about people when you tend bar, and we don’t see too many wizards from overseas around here. Tell me: what brings you to Hogsmeade?”

He explained that he was an exchange student. From Brazil. Rio de Janeiro.

Her face lit up. “Oh, if I lived there, I’d never leave!” No doubt she imagined the stretches of white sand and blue sea, Carnival and bossa nova. Not the crowded favela he was actually from, the neighborhood full of poverty, violence, and death. But who was he to spoil her fantasy, this starry-eyed girl who looked barely older than he was, who probably knew no other life outside of the village.

She leaned against the bar, all duties forgotten, and peppered him with questions about Brazil and how to say little things in Portuguese until her boss found them.

“Oi, lass, stop flirtin’ with the Hogwarts lads and take these to table five!” The ill-tempered old innkeeper dropped a tray of butterbeers on the bar in front of her.

As soon as the warlock's back was to them, she broke out in giggles. “Suppose I should get back to it, wouldn’t want to get fired my second week on the job.”

“No, we wouldn’t want that,” he agreed.

“Say, I don’t think I caught your name?” she asked, adjusting her apron.

“Joao,” he said. “And you are?”

“Rosmerta,” she beamed as she picked up the tray of butterbeers with expert ease. “Well, _nos vemos_ , Joao.”

He watched her wade in among the boisterous crowd, an amusing mix of students, professors, and locals mingling together in an almost too intimate setting. It was the last Saturday before the winter break and the last place anyone wanted to be was back at the castle doing work.

He checked his watch. It was 3 pm: there was an hour to kill before the meeting. He shouldn’t drink too much; he needed to keep his wits about him if he wanted to make a good impression. And yet, he had enough time for one more mead after this— just to steady his nerves.

He idly sipped his drink and scanned the room, until someone caught his eye. Lounging in a chair several tables to his left was the elusive Dorian Greengrass, his long, lean figure slouched in a chair, holding a book in one hand and a glass of firewhisky in the other, even though he was most certainly underage.

The Slytherin fifth-year bore an expression of elegant boredom as he turned the page of his novel. Joao squinted at the cover. _The Catcher in the Rye._ A pureblood, one of the so-called Sacred 28, reading Salinger in public? Perhaps he was being ironic; Joao usually called bullshit when his pureblood classmates carried around muggle books to be cool. But Greengrass didn’t strike him as that kind of hypocrite.

Dorian looked up from the book and his eyes met Joao’s from across the room. Even from a distance, those startling green irises were mesmerizing.

He should have probably looked away then, but he couldn’t. _Do not engage,_ he told himself, _you can’t trust anyone from Slytherin. Remember the mission._

Across the room, the Slytherin gave him a cunning smile and a nod, which he understood as: _come on over._

Joao’s stomach did a flip. _Screw it. I’m going over._

As he was about to get up from his seat, he felt someone behind him put warm hands over his eyes.

“Guess who?” chimed a girl’s voice.

 _Oh god._ He didn’t have to turn around to know who it was.

“Hi, Marta.”

The dimpled, cheerful face of Marta Oliveiros popped into view. “ _E ai, Joao_! Long time no see!” she squealed.

He responded insipidly in Portuguese. He really just wanted her to leave him alone. Instead, she glanced curiously in Dorian’s direction.

“What were you looking at?”

“Er…” he glanced back at Dorian, only to find the Slytherin had vanished, his table completely empty.

“Nothing,” he said, stunned.

“Well, what are you doing sitting here all by yourself, staring into space? Come join us. We’re just sitting over there.” Marta motioned towards the back of the pub.

Joao could only assume that ‘we’ meant his fellow Castelobruxo classmates, whom he had been avoiding since he told Victor about his winter break plans last week. He was hoping Vic hadn’t told the others, especially Marta, but he also wasn’t eager to find out.

“I really have to get back to work, I only came her for a quick study break…”

“Oh, come on! Live a little. It’s the weekend for God’s sake.”

Before he could come up with another excuse not to join her, she hooked her arm through his and dragged him off the stool. He had just enough time to grab his coat and bag off the backrest. She was petite but very forceful.

Marta deftly steered him through the pub, passing by Hagrid the Gamekeeper knocking back a gallon-sized tankard of what looked like mead; tiny Professor Flitwick locked in a game of wizard’s chess with a young visiting professor of Alchemy; Rosmerta serving a round of firewhiskey to a bawdy group of middle-aged witches.

She led him to a circular corner booth in a dimly lit corner of the dining area. Victor wasn’t there. Instead, the table was occupied by two seventh-year Gryffindors—The Head Boy Kingsley Shacklebolt and another boy he knew by face but not by name—and Eugenia.

“Look who I found!” Marta pushed him in front of her.

“Boys," she said to the two Gryffindors, "This is Joao Lobo Dias, one of the best and brightest in our year at Castelobruxo. Joao, this is Kingsley Shacklebolt and Theodore Wood.”

Shacklebolt smiled. “What’s good, man?”

“Hey,” said Wood with a curt nod.

Marta perched herself at the end of the booth next to Kingsley, leaving Joao standing awkwardly in front of them.

“Pretty crazy in here today, isn’t it?” he bumbled, more to break the ice than anything.

“It’s always like this before break, I’m surprised we managed to find a table,” said Kingsley.

“Well it was either this or the Hog’s Head. That place is never packed,”  Wood drawled.

Marta wrinkled her nose. “Probably because all the drinks there come with a dead spider at the bottom of the glass. No thank you.”

“So, should I book the Hogs Head for our next date? First round of spiders on me. I’ll make sure yours has extra hair and legs.” Kingsley nudged Marta playfully. She pouted but seemed pleased with the attention.

Joao realized then that they were on a double-date. Marta with Kingsley, Eugenia with Wood. There wasn’t room for him to sit unless it was on someone’s lap. He was annoyed but not surprised that Marta had dragged him over here to play fifth wheel. She probably just wanted another witness to her pairing with the Head Boy.

“Well, it was nice running into you all, but I’ve got to go finish my…”

“Ay, Joao, where are my manners!” gasped Marta. She took out her wand and summoned an empty chair nearby that hit him rather hard in the back of his knees, forcing him to sit down at the table. Wood winced and Eugenia suppressed a laugh, glancing at him apologetically.

“Please stay for a bit. We have so much catching up to do,” Marta begged, though he doubted she brought him here just because she missed him.

“I just wouldn’t want to interrupt your…eh…” he gestured to them.

“Oh, don’t be silly! I wouldn’t have invited you over if we didn’t want company, right?” she glared around the table until they all nodded in agreement.

“I’m glad you’re here, Joao, I feel like I haven’t seen you outside of class in forever,” Eugenia said kindly, reaching her slender arm across the table and briefly touching his hand.

The gesture, however small and platonic, was not missed by her date, who cleared his throat and blurted, “How about we get another round. Joao, you in? I’ll get this one.”

He forced a smile. “Sure, why not.”

“That’s nice of you. Thanks, Theo,” said Eugenia.

Wood gave her a small wink before signaling Rosmerta.

 _Brilliant_ , Joao thought _. He thinks I’m competition._

Rosmerta took their orders. She looked amused to see Joao again, but didn’t mention their previous encounter. He wondered if she would join them if he asked her—at least then he wouldn’t be the odd man out.

As they waited for their drinks to arrive, Kingsley tried to have a semi-serious discussion on defensive spells with Marta, who responded with shameless flirtation (“Oh, I’d love to see your _full-bodied_ Patronus sometime”), while Wood griped about quidditch-related woes to Eugenia (“Fletch is still treating the team like slaves…my batting arm is still messed up…Pomfrey thinks it’s a torn rotator cuff, couldn’t believe I was playing with it for so long”).

Eugenia listened to him prattle on about his rotator cuff with a polite, bored expression. At one point, she caught Joao’s eye from across the table and gave him a small, secretive smile. _What are you doing with this jock?_ he wondered. _Come on, Euge, you can do better than this._

But he had to admit, she could have also done worse. The girls’ dates were prime male specimens of their house: tall, attractive, and good-natured in that ‘I know I’m better than you but don’t want to show it’ kind of way.

Kingsley Shacklebolt was the embodiment of cool, from his neat, close-cut afro to the stylish suede vest he wore over a slim-fit button down. As Head Boy, Kingsley had given a short speech at the beginning of term feast. He certainly had the voice and stage presence for public speaking, but the speech itself was rather trite, something about overcoming differences to achieve great things throughout the school year. The Shacklebolt family was listed in _The Sacred 28_ as one of the last few truly pureblood families left in Britain, along with the Malfoys, the Blacks, and the Greengrasses. That Kingsley was both charming and pureblooded made him the object of many students’ affections, even among Slytherins.

Theodore Wood looked somewhat less refined, with his uncombed fair hair and loose flannel shirt, but he gave off a healthy aura that spoke of a pampered upbringing in muggle suburbia. Joao once overheard some Slytherin quidditch players gossiping about him: apparently the Gryffindor beater rage-quit his house team after they lost to Ravenclaw. Wood was a skilled flier with a strong left-handed swing, but he failed to unseat the Ravenclaw seeker, who dodged his bludger and caught the snitch. There was a rumor that captain Thad Fletcher accused Wood of throwing the game, and Wood retaliated with his bat. His placid blue eyes and soft Scottish burr bore no signs of such a violent temper, but then again, Gryffindors had a reputation for getting feisty when angry.

“Anyway, I’m finally done with quidditch and better for it,” Theo announced for the fifth time in the past ten minutes. “My arm’s bothering me less and I’m finally caught up in class. If I keep it up, I might be able to scrape an ‘E’ in Transfiguration after all.”

“Good for you, mate. Though I find it hard to believe that McG would ever flunk her own nephew,” said Kingsley.

“Pff. If anything, she grades me harder for it.”

“Professor McGonagall’s your aunt?” Joao asked. He had pegged Wood down as a muggle-born.

“Sort of—she’s my mum’s cousin. Though they’re close enough to be sisters. Not that that does me any favors in class.”

“Ugh, being related to a professor is such a drag,” groaned Marta. “I would know—the potions master at Castelo is my _vovô_.”

“Your what?” Wood sputtered.

“Her grandfather,” Kingsley explained. “Libatius Borage. You know, the guy who wrote our textbook for Advanced Potions. Right, Mar?”

“That’s him. He’s such a crazy old bat, I often forget he’s famous.”

Wood whistled. “That’s a pretty big deal. Do you plan to follow in his footsteps?”

“Ha. Probably not. I’ve never been interested in the subject academically. It drives vovô mad that I only get average grades in the class.”

“Mar definitely has Professor Borage’s talent though—she could brew Amortentia from scratch by our third year,” glowed Eugenia. “And by fourth year, she was selling bootleg love potions out of the girls’ bathroom.”

Marta sighed. “Oh, how I miss those days. I would’ve kept it going had grandfather not found out I was raiding his supply closet. It was good business.”

“I’ll say,” Joao remarked. “At the height of it, guys at Castelo began carrying around their own drinks for fears of getting their juice spiked at meals.”

Wood smirked at Kingsley. “Oof. Hope you’ve been watching your glass around this one, mate.”

“Hey, I only brewed the stuff, never used it on anyone…never had to,” Marta purred, stroking Kingsley’s arm.

Joao tried to cover up his involuntary laugh as a sneeze, but it just came off as a contemptuous snort. Marta narrowed her eyes.

“Joao, I just remembered something I wanted to ask you,” she said, her voice poisonously sweet. “How are your winter break plans coming along?”

“Good.”

“Vic told us that a certain Slytherin is hosting you in London.”

“Yes, one of my housemates.”

“So, you’re not denying it then?”

“Depends, what am I not denying?”

She eyes twinkled darkly, as if she knew his dirtiest secret.

“That you’re spending the holidays with none other than Bella Black.”

She pronounced Bella’s name as though it were a naughty word. The four of them leaned in and stared at Joao expectantly, waiting for him to respond.

He began to laugh in earnest, prompting bemused looks from the others.

“Oh goodness, no. Where did he get that idea? Bella and I aren’t that close.”

“Who are you staying with then?”

Without missing a beat, he answered, “Horatio Bulstrode offered me a room at his family’s inn.”

Horatio was his rotund, bespectacled Slytherin roommate whose idea of fun was collecting bezoars of different shapes and colors. Joao had asked him for a room at his parents’ gloomy inn in Knockturn Alley, as it was unlikely Bella or anyone in her inner circle would be caught dead there. Pureblooded as he was, Horatio had not been invited to join the Serpent’s Circle.

Marta looked disappointed. “That sounds depressing.”

“Better off there than with Bellatrix Black. Sorry if she’s your mate, but that girl’s a nasty piece of work,” Wood said bluntly.

Kingsley nodded in agreement. “Don’t know how you’ve managed to survive this long in the same house.”

The Gryffindor boys didn’t seem to hold it against him that he was sorted into Slytherin for the year, as if it were an unfortunate circumstance beyond his control. He was relieved that none of them seemed to know about Bella’s purebloods-only holiday party or that he was invited to it.

Yet Joao’s curiosity got the better of him. “You two have been at Hogwarts with Bella for seven years,” he said to Kingsley and Wood. “What was she like back in the day?”

“Let’s see…” Wood pondered. “During our first year she fat-shamed Lavinia Moss via howler.”

“And the time she ‘accidentally’ blew up Maeve McLaggen’s parakeet in Transfiguration,” added Kingsley.

“She was the one who sent Greg Dawlish those chocolate cauldrons spiked with Most Potente Laxative Potion on Valentine’s Day, right?”

Kingsley was now grinning wickedly. “And who could forget during our third year, when she slipped a doxy down the back of Theo’s shirt in study hall. It got caught up in his clothes, so he just started stripping in the middle of the Great Hall.”

Wood looked at him sourly while everyone else laughed.

 “Anyway, most of that stuff seems like child’s play compared to now.” said Kingsley, his mirth subsiding. “You should hear some of the prejudiced shit that comes out of her mouth in class. I wouldn’t be surprised if that whole family came out in support of You-Know-Who.”

“Her cousin Sirius doesn’t seem so bad.”

Kingsley snorted. “I beg to differ, Eugenia. You were there that night when I had to tell him and Potter off for being right pains in the arse.”

“I know he’s a trouble maker, but he doesn’t seem like a Death Eater. He’s been awfully nice to me lately.”

“Only because he fancies you, Euge. Watch out, Theo. She’s got a line of suitors a mile-long vying for your spot,” teased Marta.

“Do not,” Eugenia muttered.

Wood grinned and slung his arm over the backrest behind her. “Don’t worry, I think I can deal with your third-year fanboys.”

Eugenia rolled her eyes, but Marta was right about this one. Though she had an understated personality, her looks garnered a lot of unwanted attention, no matter how hard she tried to downplay them with her lack of makeup and bland fashion sense. She sat there in her over-sized turtleneck, her narrow shoulders hunched, and she was still breathtakingly pretty. Joao remembered Mulciber’s crude remarks; if Wood continued to go out with her, he’d have bigger contenders to deal with than the likes of Sirius Black.

Rosmerta finally returned with their drinks. “Sorry about the wait, loves, this place is a madhouse today.”

She winked at Joao as she set his pint down. He smiled graciously at her. “Obrigada.”

His friendly interaction with barmaid prompted a suspicious glance from Eugenia. He responded with a clueless shrug, taking a long sip of his mead.

Wood interrupted their silent exchange. “Eugenia—forgive me if you’ve already told me—but what is it your parents do again?”

“Oh, they’re professors, too.”

“At Castelobruxo?”

“At the University of Buenos Aires. They’re muggles. My mother teaches English Literature and my father History.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not.”

“I mean—I think it’s groovy. My dad’s a university man himself. Studied law at Edinburgh and still lectures there sometimes.

“Cool. That’s a really good school, isn’t it?”

“It’s alright I guess.”

She bit her lip and looked down at her glass. “Does your dad ever give you a hard time about not going to university after Hogwarts?”

“Er, not anymore, though it took him a while come to terms with it, me being his only legacy. But I think mum’s convinced him that wizards don’t need to go to uni. Besides, school’s never been my strong suit. Couldn’t imagine doing four more years of it.”

“You’re lucky your mother can vouch for you. Both of my parents are still holding out hope that I’ll enroll after graduation, even though I tell them over and over again that a degree isn’t going to get me anywhere in the wizarding world.”

“Don’t know why muggles care so much about degrees. Seems like a lot of money and time spent on a piece of parchment telling you you’re smart,” Wood said. “You don’t need that, everyone already knows you’re brilliant.”

He had meant to flatter her, but her face implied that his casual dismissal of her parents’ livelihoods did just the opposite.

“That’s the thing,” she said sadly. “I wanted to be just like them growing up: get a doctorate, teach at a big university. But then I found out I was a witch, and witches don’t go to college. Suddenly it was like their careers, their passions, their identities—all of it just became completely irrelevant to me. They think I’m off in Brazil learning some hocus pocus magic tricks, but they’ll never understand what I’m really capable of. It’s like…every time I go back home over the summer, the more I see how much of a stranger I’ve become in their eyes. They’re realizing it, too: that despite raising me, they still have no idea who—or what—I am.”

Joao and Wood listened to her rant in stunned silence. Even Marta and Kingsley paused from their own conversation to raise their eyebrows at her. Blushing furiously, Eugenia picked up her glass and took several generous gulps of mead.

Wood coughed nervously. “Soo…er…anyone doing anything interesting over the holidays?”

Kingsley sighed. “Not really, man. Gotta start studying for the auror entrance exams. They’re only three weeks after our NEWTs.”

“I for one have had enough of the dreary weather here and plan on spending as much of the break as possible on the beach,” announced Marta. “Some friends and I have a place lined up just outside of Florianopolis for New Year’s Eve. Euge, you’ll be in Baires, right? You should definitely come up—it’ll be a blast.”

Eugenia had regained her normal composure. “Thanks, Mar, but I’m not going home for Christmas. I’m staying in London, too.”

“What? Since when?”

“Since last week. Ruth invited me to stay at her place.”

This was surprising. Ruth Macdonald seemed to be the most tolerable of Eugenia’s gossipy roommates, but she and Eugenia didn’t strike Joao as being _that_ close.

“Brilliant,” said Wood. “I’ll be in the city around New Years. If you’re not too busy, maybe we can meet up for a drink?”

“Sure.”

He seemed content with her aloof response, but Joao was unconvinced.  

Meanwhile, the scene around them grew rowdier. At the bar, Hagrid began to growl a tune with an old warlock. Flitwick shot an incantation at the piano, which started banging out a catchy jazz number. Rosmerta put down the tray of butterbeers she was carrying and pulled the young Alchemy professor stumbling into a small opening in the middle of the floor, where they began to dance. Patrons at the nearby tables whistled, clapped, and cheered them on.

Amidst the gleeful chaos, Joao suddenly remembered the time. He finished his pint and pushed back from the table.

“Sorry gang, I gotta book. That Defense essay isn’t going to write itself,” he said patting his school bag. “Thanks for the drinks, Theo.”

As they exchanged hasty goodbyes, Eugenia looked like she wanted to say something else to him, but no words came out.

 

\---

 

Fifteen minutes later, Joao found himself down the road at the Hog’s Head Inn.

Unlike the Broomsticks, the place was deserted apart from a few seedy looking patrons. Near him, a wan little man in a shabby trench coat was slumped over face-down on the dusty bar, snoring loudly.

He ordered a drink to not look conspicuous, but Marta’s earlier comments put him off actually drinking it. The bartender—a cross-looking warlock with a long, scraggly gray beard and piercing blue eyes—kept glancing at him warily while he polished a dirty glass with an equally dirty rag.

Any minute now, he was going to be face-to-face representative from the Order of the Phoenix, a group of supposedly elite wizards fighting the Death Eaters and their leader, Lord Voldemort. They operated outside of the more established British Auror Office, out of concerns that Voldemort had ears and eyes in the Ministry. Last summer, the Order contracted the IWIA to investigate suspected Death Eater activity at Hogwarts. As the IWIA’s youngest and most promising new recruit, Joao was a perfect fit for the mission: no one would suspect an easygoing foreign exchange student of working for the resistance.  

There was just one problem: The Order’s membership was so discreet that not even he had any idea who they were—including the person who was supposed to be meeting him at that very moment.

Four days prior, he received a message from the Order via a Patronus shaped like a fat gopher: “Saturday. 4 pm. Hog’s Head. Come alone. Don’t talk to anyone. Wait for a sign.” It didn’t specify what the sign would be. To obscure things further, the gopher spoke with a magically modified voice, leaving Joao with no way of identifying whoever conjured it. He understood that they needed to maintain the highest level of secrecy, but this was just downright inconvenient.

The trenchcoated little man suddenly woke up with a snort. He looked around bleary-eyed, checked his watch, and cursed.

“Oi, Abe,” he rasped at the bartender. “What’s a man gotta do to get drink around ‘ere?”

Without speaking or moving from his corner, the bartender poured dram of firewhisky and sent it sliding down the length of the bar into the man’s waiting hand.

“Aye, cheers. Put it on my tab.”

The man drained the glass in one swallow, then stared at Joao rudely with bloodshot eyes.

“Hey, kid. You from the school?”

Joao frowned at him. “Yeah.”

The man shiftily glanced around before scooting towards him. He reeked of a stale mixture of beer, cigarettes, and possibly marijuana.

“You, er, lookin’ to buy?” he slurred. “I’ve got everythin’ you young fellas are into these days—” he patted his bulky coat—“Mopsy, Puff, Devil’s Snare, Merlin’s Beard, Dementor’s Kiss…ooh, I know. I’ll give you a student discount on Felix, that one’s want always a hit around finals…”

“I’m not here to buy drugs,” said Joao flatly.

“Shh! Mind yer voice, now,” the man hissed. The bartender, who was still polishing the same dirty glass, was now glaring at them suspiciously.

“Tell you what,” he wheezed. “Why don’t you take a gander at the stash before making up your mind, _Big Cat_.”

That codename, referring to Joao’s ocelot patronus, tipped him off.

“ _Gopher_?”

The man grinned affirmatively, showing off several gold-capped teeth. “Aye. Let’s get down to business then.”

Under the guise of entering a drug deal, he warily followed the bandy-legged Order rep to an even dingier, windowless room in the back of the inn. Gopher closed the door behind them.

“Mind if I smoke?” grunted the man, pulling out a rolled cigarette. Joao did mind, as the room was small and poorly ventilated, but didn’t say anything. He lit up anyway.

“Gopher—” Joao began.

“Ach, bugger these ruddy codenames,” he grunted. “Call me ‘Dung’ or nothin’ at all.”

“Er—ok—Dung, I’m assuming you got my last Patronus about the gathering at Grimmauld Place on the 24th?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dung mumbled carelessly, dangling the cigarette from his mouth. He took a long drag and gave Joao another look-over. “The IWIA snatch you straight outta the cradle or somethin’?”

“I’m seventeen. They wanted someone who was still in school for this mission, you know that.”

“Must be somethin’ special, lettin’ you sign on early,” he wheezed derisively, blowing pungent clouds of smoke into Joao’s face.

“Let’s stick to the subject, please.” Joao impatiently fanned the air in front of him. “What are the Order’s instructions for Christmas Eve?”

Dung took another puff. “Nothin’.”

“Excuse me?”

“Those are the orders from up top: do nothin’, say nothin’ outta the ordinary. Yer goin’ to a ruddy party—just act like it.”

“That’s all? What was the purpose of this meeting, then?”

“Oh, right—I’m supposed to tell you to keep tabs on who shows up, get a record of it somehow if you can, and report back to me here the night before term starts,” Dung added as though reading off a list.

“Observe and report.” Joao repeated hollowly. How anticlimactic, after all the training he’d been through to get here.

“You got it, kid. Shouldn’t be too hard for a young hotshot like you. And one more thing—I’m supposed to give you this.”

From the inside of his coat, Dung withdrew a crumpled paper bag and threw it at him. Joao opened the bag gingerly, finding it filled with multi-colored, earthy smelling capsules that looked suspiciously like—

“Mopsy? I don’t use this stuff.” He tried to hand back the drugs. Mopsy—the street name for ‘Most Psychedelic Magic Morsels’—were candy-like tablets made from a magically grown fungus that caused hyper-real hallucinations lasting up to several days. It was definitely banned from Hogwarts.

Dung let out a raspy laugh that turned into a coughing fit. “Oh, get off your high horse. You think I'm gonna risk both our necks by sending you back out there without a cover? If you get stopped and anyone asks why you’re lurkin’ around the Hog’s Head—that's it.” He pointed at the bag.

“There’s no way—," Joao began to retort.

“Yer bloody welcome, kid!” Dung grumbled, offended by Joao’s ungratefulness. “That stuff sells like hot cakes around the holidays—I could be turnin’ a real profit off that, but instead I’m givin’ it up so some Death Eater doesn’t lop yer head off for talkin’ to me about Order business!”

 

\---

 

The sun was beginning to set by the time Joao left the Hogs Head.

It wasn’t like he had expected the Order to send their best man, but he couldn’t help but feel slightly let down. He was hoping to meet an expert in covert ops, someone who could advise him on how to infiltrate the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black without being detected by Death Eaters. Instead, he got Dung and a pound of illegal drugs stashed in his schoolbag.

As he began to walk back to the castle, pondering his life choices, a distant voice behind him called his name:

“Hey, Joao. Wait up.”

He wheeled around to see Eugenia jogging towards him, alone.

“ _Todo bien_ , Euge?”

She caught up to him quickly on her long legs, looking uncharacteristically wild with her cold-reddened cheeks and her brunette mane whipped around her pale face.

“ _Si, claro_.” She smoothed her flyaway hair, slightly out of breath. “Are you going back to the castle?”

“Yeah. Where’s your boyfriend?”

“Theo’s not my…” she shook her head. “It was only our second date. Listen, can I walk with you? I want to talk to you about something.”

"What is it?" he asked, as they began walking.

“Why you’re really staying in London for the break? I mean the real reason, not Horatio Bulstrode’s hotel, or whatever.”  

He grinned a little. “I should be asking you the same thing. Spending Christmas with your new best pal Ruth MacDonald, whom you’ve hardly mentioned all semester?”

“Touché. But I asked you first.”

“Fine. I’m staying here because I don’t want to go back to Rocinha. I think you know enough about my life by now to fill in the details why.” This wasn’t an outright lie; aside from going undercover at Bella's holiday bash, he genuinely wanted an excuse to not return to Rio until the summer.

“Did something happen at home?”

“No. It’s the same old shit. That’s the problem.”

She nodded. “I can imagine.”

He doubted she really could. She was an only child raised by two university professors in an upscale Buenos Aires barrio. He was the youngest of six, raised by parents who didn’t finish high school, in a cramped favela tenement on a street where petty squabbles could turn into bloody wars in the blink of an eye.

They walked in silence for a moment before she spoke again. “I suppose what I really wanted to know was if Bella Black has anything to do with your plans to stay here over break.”

“I told you I…”

“I know when you’re lying, Joao. As soon as you said her name your left eye did that twitching thing.”

“My eye does not twitch,” he said, his left eye twitching. _Shit_ , _maybe my poker face isn’t as good as I thought_.

“Look…you have to understand: Bella _is_ Slytherin House. You can’t live there and avoid her.”

“So you’re going to see her in London, then?”

“Yes,” he said slowly. “But not just her. Others, too.” _At the Black ancestral home, at a party that will probably  be chaperoned by Lord Voldemort himself._

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, you alone with all those Slytherins. With everything that’s going on. People are going to think you’re a…” she said trailing off.

“What…a Death Eater? You’re starting to sound like Vic.”

“Maybe so, but I don’t have a good feeling about the company you keep.”

“You’re just biased because you’re in Gryffindor. Slytherin’s got variety, too. Not everyone’s like Bella.” He thought of Dorian Greengrass, with his sleek chestnut brown hair, bright green eyes, and his stupidly sexy smirk. He was secretly holding out hope that the Slytherin nonconformist would be at the party, despite its cultish theme.

“I suppose.” She still looked anxious, but didn’t press the subject further.

They were now crossing the bridge. The dusky orange sky and light dusting of snow gave everything a filter of Christmas card perfection.

“Your turn,” he said.

Eugenia cocked her head. “What?”

“I told you my plans for the break. Now you have to tell me why you’re sticking around.”

She looked down, examining her coat buttons. “Because I don’t want to go home either.”

“Does it have anything to do with your little monologue back at the pub?”

“It has to do with why I decided to come here in the first place.” She stopped and leaned against the bridge railing, gazing at the castle looming before them.

“I came here to look for more information about my real parents, who may have gone to Hogwarts.”

“Your ‘real’…You mean to say that you’re actually—”

“Adopted, yeah. My parents—adoptive parents—told me over the summer.” It sounded like she was speaking around a lump in her throat.

“ _Meu Deus_ , Euge. I don’t know what to say. That must have been a shock.”

She swallowed. “It was.”

“Do you think they were wizards then? Your biological parents.”

“I think my father was at least, I don’t know anything about my mother. My paternal grandmother handled my adoption in Buenos Aires. All my parents told me was that she was a British expat, and maybe a witch. I made my parents ask the adoption agency for her contact information, but they had no records on her. It’s like she never existed.”

“Your biological father, is he still…alive?”

“I don’t know. Though it doesn’t look so good if it was my grandmother who gave me up, does it?” She squinted towards the castle. “But you know how all British wizards are related somehow? I figured he might still have family here.”

“Have you found anything?”

She shook her head. “I’ve combed through all the old yearbooks, newspaper clippings in the library…nothing.”

“So, you’re going to London to look for more information.”

“That’s part of it. The library in Diagon Alley has more public records, I could continue to look there. The other part is that I’m not ready to face my parents again. I’m still…processing…how they could have kept this from me for so long, even after they found out I was different.”

He was torn. He had enough on his plate without her father issues to deal with, but he wanted to help her; she looked heart-breakingly desperate.

“I might be able to help,” he said. “Slytherins are particular about magical heritage, as you know. The House keeps its own records of past students. I can go through them and ask around, see if I can get a lead.”

“You would do that?”

“Of course.”

She suddenly threw her arms around him tight. “Joao, you don’t know how much this means to me. I’ve been feeling so alone in all of this until now.”

It felt strange to embrace her. In all the years they’d known each other, she had never been the hugging-type.

“Do you have a name—your birth father’s name?” He asked awkwardly into her hair.

She pulled away from him, a flush spreading across her face that he suspected wasn’t from the cold.

“I don't know his first name. But his surname was Riddle.”

 

\---

 

In the dorm later that night, Joao sat up in his four-poster bed with the curtains drawn around him, reading and re-reading the IWIA’s dossier on Lord Voldemort. For someone referred to as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the dark wizard was known by many names, including The Dark Lord, Supreme Death Eater, and You-Know-Who.

But there was a time when he was known only as Tom Marvolo Riddle.

 _His surname was Riddle_. Her words struck him like a knife. Not many knew people knew that was Voldemort’s real name. Including Eugenia, apparently.

He didn’t see it fit to reveal this connection to her. Not yet. He ought to have more proof that they were actually related before dropping a bomb like that. Anyway, too much of her story conflicted with the report in his hand: Tom Riddle was listed as ‘having no known living family.’ He never married, didn’t have siblings, and his parents had died long before Eugenia’s birth. If Tom Riddle was her father, there was no way her paternal grandmother could have given her up for adoption.

Perhaps the Riddle who fathered Eugenia was from a different family altogether. It was a fairly common English surname after all—like Smith, or Jones.

 _It’s probably just a coincidence,_ he told himself. _I shouldn’t jump to conclusions without evidence._

He carefully stowed the dossier away and lay back into the pillows. He closed his eyes, waiting for sleep to come, but it was no use. Restless, he kicked the sheets off and rolled out of bed.

“Where you off to at this hour, Lobo Dias?” yawned Warren Wilkes, who was sitting cross-legged in the bed opposite his, flipping through a magazine. He and Joao were the only ones in the dorm; their other roommates were currently at Slughorn’s holiday gathering, to which they were not invited.

“For a walk before curfew. Can’t sleep.”

“You want some Sleeping Draught? Or…something stronger?”

There was no doubt Wilkes kept a stash of ‘something stronger’ somewhere in their room. He had a notorious reputation around the castle for dealing illicit potions for every occasion: sleeping, studying, partying, dating. Miraculously, he carried on for six years at Hogwarts without once being caught. He now serviced all four houses—though he once admitted to charging Gryffindors more.

Joao shook his head. “I’m good, thanks.”

He was about to walk out the door, when an idea struck him.

“Actually, Warren, I have a proposition for you.” He went to his schoolbag lying on the floor and pulled out the crumpled bag of mopsy that Dung had given at him. He tossed it onto Wilkes’ bed.

Wilkes picked it up curiously and opened it. His eyes widened. “Bloody hell, Joao.” He examined one of the capsules closely between his fingers. “This is some prime stuff. How did you get all of this?”

“I’ve got my sources. Listen, it’s yours to sell if we split the profits down the middle.”

Wilkes gaped at him, and for a second Joao feared he overstepped; dealing in magical hallucinogens might be slightly above his pay grade. But then his roommate tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Hmm…that’s a higher percentage than I’d normally part with, but with a holiday markup…and since we’re mates…yeah, I think I can make it work.”

“So, do we have a deal?”

“We have a deal.” They shook hands for good measure. Wilkes grinned at him impishly. “I must say, you surprise me, Lobo Dias.”

He left the room with a sense of reckless pleasure. Dung wasn’t going to be happy that he was peddling his goods, but wasn’t he supposed to take his cover story seriously? After all, his life could depend on it.


	9. The Fool

**1994  
Casa Oscura**

 

Sirius knew he should feel worse about kissing another man’s wife. But then again, he was a convicted mass murderer—there wasn't much he could do to further tarnish his image.

Instead, he focused on other things. Her hair, for example—how soft it was as he ran his fingers through it. And the silk of her dress. And the lithe curve of her body against his.

She thrilled him like no one he’d met before. She made him feel like his younger self—the recklessly handsome boy of eighteen who wore a dragon leather jacket and no helmet while whipping through the streets of London on his bike, a beautiful stranger riding pillion behind him.

That boy wouldn’t recognize the man he had become: a paranoid hermit on the run, who had spent the last year living off squirrels and berries in the woods. Or else a rangy dog sniffing food scraps out of trash cans.

Cruel doubts began to resurface. _Wake up, arsehole! You’re being played. There’s no way a woman like her would actually go for a pathetic, broken old fool like you._

With great reluctance, he gently pulled away.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” he said sheepishly. “I don’t want to rush things.”

“Don’t worry,” she purred. “We have all the time in the world.”

He loved the way she spoke—with her softly rolling ‘r’s and lyrical cadence. Had they been together in another life, he would have taken her out on dates just to hear her talk.

“You really are beautiful,” he said before he could stop himself. “Theo’s one lucky man.”

A shadow of guilt crossed her face at the mention of her husband, and she looked away. “I don’t normally do this. But I can imagine what you must think of me…”

“No, no. I don’t think of you like that at all. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring him up. As you said before, I’m a bit rusty at this.”

She smirked playfully, “No kidding.”

“Honestly, I think the world of you, Eugenia,” he said.

  _Too much_. _Reel it in, lover boy._

It was too late. She was giving him that eager look again, tracing the side of his face with her fingertips. He sighed apologetically as he took her hand away.

“I want to show you something,” he said.

She wore a curious expression as he stepped back from her towards the middle of the room.

He snapped his fingers. On a shelf several feet away, a vintage record player whirred to life. “Hit it,” he said. The needle dropped on the vinyl and a track began to play.

Her eyes narrowed. “How did you…?”

He moved his shoulders in time with the keyboard riff.  With a casual wave of his arm, the lights dimmed and a small disco ball descended from the ceiling.

Eugenia stared at the glittering sphere. “Sirius, what’s going on—”

The synth beat kicked in and he began to dance-shuffle on the rug, the way he used to when he was a teenager alone in his bedroom, mouthing the vocals into an invisible microphone:

 _He came from somewhere back in her long ago_  
_The sentimental fool don't see, tryin' hard to recreate_  
_what had yet to be created, once in her life!_

He was now crooning to her from atop the coffee table.

 _She musters a smile for his nostalgic tale_  
_Never coming near what he wanted to say_  
_For him to realize, it never really was…_

There was no music in Azkaban, so the only songs Sirius knew by heart were the disco rock hits that used to play on his old muggle wireless set, the one he purchased when he was sixteen to piss off his mother—his final act of defiance before he left Grimmauld Place for good.

He spun around and landed on his knees in front of her.

_WHAT A FOOL BELIEEEVES, HE SEEEES  
NO WISE MAN HAS THE POWER!_

“You’re out of your mind,” she barked over the chorus.

“What are you talking about?” he laughed. “This is all in my mind, baby!”

With the flick of her wand, Eugenia killed the music. The record whirred to a stop

Panting slightly but still grinning, he rose to his feet. “Really? I thought everyone liked The Doobies—woah, ok, easy now.”

Her wand was now pointed at his face. “When did you figure it out?” she asked quietly.    

“Figure out what, exactly?” he challenged.

Her jaw tensed. “That this isn’t real.”

“I had suspicions since the day you left, but you only confirmed them just now.”

He carefully pushed her wand away. “I assume the wand is just for show. You don’t really need it to do magic in a dream, do you?”

She allowed him a small, wary smile. “It’s a bit more complicated than that. But I must say, I like what you’ve done with the place," she said eyeing the disco ball.

“It’s not like I can do anything I want. I can’t seem to conjure an exit, for example. Nor summon Peter Pettigrew and throttle him. And believe me—I’ve tried.”

“You’re right. We had to set some limits.”

“What do you mean by ‘we’?”

She sighed, and pressed her fingers against her temples as if she had a headache. Suddenly she called out, “ _Él ya sabe, Joao!_ ”

A new voice said, “Sirius _, e aí, cara_? Long time no see.”

A young man had appeared on the couch. He was lean and dark featured, grinning at Sirius with a row of even, white teeth.

Sirius stared, his mouth suddenly dry. “Joao. I thought you were dead.”

“Oh, I am,” he said brightly. “But here, that doesn’t mean we have to miss out on all the fun, right Euge?” He had a deep, pleasant voice. Like Eugenia, he spoke impeccable English with just a trace of an accent.

Sirius slowly turned towards Eugenia, not sure if he wanted to know the answer to the question he was about to ask.

“Are you dead, too?”

She shook her head. “Technically speaking, no.”

_Technically speaking?_

“How long has he been lucid?” Joao asked Eugenia. The IWIA agent was now walking in circles around Sirius, looking him up and down.

“Couple of days. But I think it started as soon as he got here. He’s shown incredible cognitive control. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She spoke about him with clinical indifference, as if he was nothing more than an experiment to her.

“Amazing. You’d think after so long in prison his mind would have deteriorated to the point where he can no longer tell a delusion from reality.”

“I’m still here you know,” Sirius grunted. “And my mental facilities are still good enough to understand everything you’re saying, thank you very much.”

“We’re not criticizing your intelligence,” Eugenia said briskly. “Most Azkaban prisoners show signs of psychosis after six months. You were there for twelve years. To be honest, I was sort of counting on that to be the case, which is perhaps why some of the safeguards I put in place didn't hold up.”

She turned to Joao. “He found out about Theo’s dad, even though I was careful about removing all reminders of his death from the memory. Or so I thought.”

The absurd hypotheses that had been running through his head all week suddenly coalesced into one. Her words supported what he had been suspecting: he was interacting with memories—Eugenia in her party dress, Joao looking young and very much alive, Theo’s childhood home, even himself. The man he now saw when he looked in the mirror was younger and handsomer than he should be, given the decade he’d spent rotting in a cell.

“Wherever we are right now…is it some sort of pensieve?” he asked clumsily.

Joao laughed. “An excellent guess. You’re nearly there.”

He and Eugenia were now standing shoulder to shoulder and looking at him with sympathetic, slightly condescending expressions, like parents about to inform their child that they were getting a divorce.

“We’ll explain everything,” she assured him. “But first, there’s something we need from you.”

“What is it?”

“A memory,” said Joao. “The only thing is—you don’t remember it.”

“How is it a memory then?”

“Think: what's the most common way of making a wizard forget something?”

“Well…the _Obliviate_  charm.”

“Precisely. Contrary to popular belief, obliviating someone doesn’t actually erase a memory from a wizard’s mind. It merely covers it up, makes it inaccessible to the conscious mind. Or that’s our working theory, anyway.”

Joao took out his wand and waved it in a circular motion. A  silvery oblong disc with a shallow basin materialized out of thin air: it was a pensieve. 

 _A pensieve within a pensieve,_ Sirius mused. _What an odd premise_.

Eugenia shot Joao a worried look, “I don’t know about this. Forcing forgotten memories out of a subject runs a greater risk of irreversible insanity. Do you think he’ll be okay?”

“W...what now?” Sirius stuttered.

“We tried it your way; it didn’t work,” Joao said to Eugenia, ignoring Sirius’s panicked expression. “So now we move on to plan b. But don’t think your work was all for naught. He’s primed now. Chances are good he’ll survive.”

“Oi, don’t I get a say in this? I didn’t escape Azkaban for two lunatic ghosts to run mind experiments on me.”

“Sirius, this'll be much easier if you cooperate,” she pleaded. “You’ll benefit from this, too. We think that somewhere in the recesses of your mind is a memory someone didn’t want you to have. But it’s one that would that could help us all better understand…well, what brought you here in the first place.”

“What brought me here?” he scoffed. “I’m here because you probably drugged me, tied me up in some basement, pumped my system full of god knows what—magic mushrooms or something—made me hallucinate that I was riding a hippogriff across South America, and then dunked me in a pensieve, where I’m about to be a guinea pig for some crackpot memory procedure.”

Joao slow clapped. “Man, you are good! If you hadn’t been sentenced to life for mass murder, the IWIA could have definitely used a strong deductive mind like yours. What Eugenia meant to say though, is that this memory might clarify something that’s been thwarting us for a while now: the origins of Peter’s defection to the dark side.”

The anger building up in his chest exploded to the surface. “How is that going to help anyone at this point?” Sirius shouted. “Even if there is some obliviated memory lodged somewhere in my head. James is dead. Lily is dead. Harry is all alone. My reputation is permanently trashed. And Peter…that rat got away with it. Knowing when or why that bleeding traitor turned on us isn’t going to change any of that!”

Eugenia looked at him with pleading eyes. “It could bring you some closure. It seems like that’s been in short supply for you these days. At this point, what do you really have to lose?”

He could try to fight them, but it would be of no use. He suspected their powers here surely dwarfed his own. _If they’re going to force me to do it one way or another_ , _might as well try to get something out of it_.

“If I agree to do this, will you let me go?”

“We would certainly be open to discussing the terms of your release if you can find what we’re looking for,” Joao said crisply. Sirius figured that was going to be as good of a promise as he was going to get.

“Alright, let’s get this over with,” he sighed.

Sirius stepped up to the disc. Joao touched his wand to his temple, withdrawing a long, silver thread of memories, and dropped it into the basin.

“What do I do?” he asked, watching his thread dissolve into the fluid.

“Just relax, Padfoot.” Joao said soothingly. “This won't hurt a bit.”

 _How does he know my nickname?_ Sirius pondered as the man dunked him headfirst into the cool, swirling surface of his past.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lyrics belong to "What a Fool Believes" by The Doobie Brothers.


	10. The Team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In 1973, The Marauders deal with a prank gone astray. On Christmas eve, Sirius finds an unexpected guest at Bella's soiree.

**December, 1973  
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry**

 

 

“Attention, class. ATTENTION!” barked Professor McGonagall as she strode to the front of the classroom of chatting third-years. “That means you, too, Mr. Potter, Mr. Black.”

“Today, we will be talking about Animagi. Who can remind us what an Animagus is—yes, Miss Macdonald.”

An Animagus, as Mary Macdonald cited word-for-word from her textbook, was a witch or wizard who can morph her or himself into an animal at will. The students were familiar with the concept, of course, as by now they’ve all seen McGonagall transform from human to cat and vice versa on more than one occasion.

“Now, becoming an Animagus is a notoriously arduous task. One must hold the leaf of a Mandrake in their mouth for an entire month, and use the leaf to create a potion, reciting the incantation _Amato Animo Animato Animagus_ on a daily basis. Finally, the witch or wizard must drink the Animagus potion during a lightning storm. If done successfully, the individual will be able to transform into the animal of their choosing at will, with or without a wand.”

“I must warn you, before anyone gets any ideas”—McGonagall eyed Sirius Black and James Potter in particular—"that brewing an Animagus potion is very difficult and dangerous. If done wrong, the consequences could be life-threatening.”

Sirius shot a sidelong glance at James when the professor wasn’t looking. What McGonagall did not know was that her two pupils were well aware of how difficult it was to make, because they’ve already attempted it. They did not get very far, however, as both were unable to keep the Mandrake leaf in their mouths for very long without salivating uncontrollably or accidentally eating it.

Next, they had tried to transform themselves with spells, but these yielded even more laughable results. James ended up with antlers sprouting out of his head, but nothing else changed.

From the row behind them, Remus Lupin eyed his two friends warily. He was hoping they had given up on their mad attempts at self-transfiguration for good, but he suspected otherwise. And he was right to, as unbeknownst to him, in a stall in an abandoned girl’s lavatory on the second floor, his friends were brewing an experimental potion that would allow the drinker to temporarily take animal form for a few hours. Theoretically speaking, that is, as it remained untested.

As the lecture went on and on, Sirius’s thoughts began to drift from that potion stewing in the girl’s bathroom, to a certain girl. She was a sixth-year exchange student and very out of his league, yet he couldn’t help thinking about her, how lovely she looked by the common room fire, her face tilted in concentration over some dense-looking book on Runes, absently twirling a shiny lock of her long brown hair between her fingers…

“…and your essays on identifying Animagi will be due the Monday before the holiday. Class dismissed,” concluded McGonagall.

As they filed out of the classroom, Sirius saw someone waiting for him in the corridor. He nodded tersely to James, Remus, and Peter to go ahead without him. James hesitated, but Sirius silently urged him again to leave.

It was Bella, standing in the middle of the hallway, causing the barrage of students leaving the class to part around her. Several students stared at her as they passed. She was certainly a sight to behold: dressed in all black, she donned a well-tailored traveling cloak with a sleek fur collar and leather gloves. Her face peered pale above the black fur trim, framed by her equally dark, long hair. On her lips she wore a contemptuous smile painted such an ostentatious shade of red, Sirius wondered how she walked around like that without reprimand from a professor. She greeted Sirius with her signature heavy-lidded stare.

“Going somewhere?” he grunted.

“As a matter of fact, yes, but that’s none of your business, little cousin.” 

“What do you want?” 

“To remind you, dear cousin, of who you are. To remind you that despite your inferior sorting, your blood-traitor attitude, and those filthy mudbloods you call friends, you are first and foremost a Black. Try as you might, you will never be anything or anyone else.” Her voice remained venomously calm, but her eyes narrowed and color appeared on her cheeks as she pronounced each insult. Rage was boiling just below the surface.

“Gee, thanks for reminding me what my last name is. Glad we could chat.” He turned heel and began to walk away.

Bella didn’t move. “I know you lied for her. Because of you, my sister is married to a mudblood.”

Sirius stopped in his tracks. He supposed it was only a matter of time before someone found out how he had covered for Andromeda, allowing her to secretly elope with her muggle-born husband. But that was a year ago: why was Bella only confronting him about it now? Andromeda and Ted have since been banished from the family and recently had a baby, causing a new wave of hysteria among their parents.

“Let me guess: you finally got through to Kreacher. Congratulations.” Sirius’s relationship with Kreacher was built on profound mutual hate for each other. He knew that bloody house-elf would eventually find some way to defy his orders to keep Andromeda’s relationship a secret from Bella and the rest of their wretched family.

“When the Dark Lord is in power, you will regret that decision, Sirius,” she said quietly.

That was the first time Sirius had heard her openly affirm her allegiance to the Death Eaters.

“If I could do it again, I would. In a heartbeat, a hundred times. At least one person in this cult we call a family is finally free from all this Pureblood-mania bullshit.”

“Think you’re better than all of us, do you? Just because you follow that blood-traitor Potter around, just because you can charm all of your professors into thinking you’re so clever.” She pointed at the Gryffindor emblem on the front of his robes. “Think because you’ve got _that_ on your chest, telling you you’re brave. I see right through you, Sirius. I know how weak you are. I know how afraid you are of being all alone.”

“Bye, Bella.” Sirius had enough of her tirade and began walking away again.

She raised her voice. “You’re pathetic. I know you pine after that foreign girl, the one from the jungle. I heard she’s a mudblood, too; go figure. But I bet she doesn’t even know you exist.”

He didn’t even have time to wonder how she found out about Eugenia before he spun around and said, “Shut up, you Death Eater slut.”

Bella responded by letting out let out a high, cackling laugh, delighted at how angry she made him.

Then a soft but firm voice behind her beckoned, “Bella.” It was her younger sister, Narcissa. She too was dressed in traveling clothes.

Bella took a breath to regain composure. “Coming, Cissy.”

She gave Sirius one last poison-dipped smile. “I so very much look forward to seeing you at Christmas, little cousin.” The sisters turned their backs to him and walked away side-by-side down the now empty hall.

\---  
  


“I can’t believe you said that to her face,” James marveled as he, Sirius, Remus, and Peter trudged back to Gryffindor tower later that evening. “Don’t get me wrong: you were just saying what we’re all thinking. But, mate, that’s how you end up with a bloody horse head in your bed.”

Sirius sighed. Here he was worrying about being murdered by his deranged cousin over the holidays, and James still saw it as an opportunity to reference _The_ _Godfather_ , which he had been doing ever since they snuck into a theater last summer to watch it; neither of them had seen a film before. “Nah, if anything it’ll be a house-elf head. She can borrow one from my family’s private collection.”

Remus patted his shoulder reassuringly. “Alright, enough about heads. Look on the bright side: she didn’t blast you to smithereens. That’s good, right?”

“More like she’s just waiting to strike when I least expect it. _Flibberty Gibbet_ ,” Sirius said solemnly to the Fat Lady, who swung open to let them into the Gryffindor Common Room.

The room was packed with the usual post-study hall crowd. Sirius tried to navigate around the clusters of students without being noticed; he wanted nothing more than to be in his dorm, curtains drawn around his four-poster, not talking to anyone. But before they could even reach the staircase they were hailed by a high, cheery voice.

“Hey, fellas!”

Virginia Crowley, one of James’s teammates on the house quidditch team, bobbed over to them. She was a sprightly fourth-year with mousy chin-length hair. Until last month she was just a reserve Chaser, when a desperate Captain Fletcher added her to the starting lineup to replace Theodore Wood—a Beater. Unsurprisingly, she struggled to fill the vacancy left by the strapping seventh-year, but continued to train with a dauntless enthusiasm that made Sirius tired just thinking about it.

“Hi, Ginny,” they chorused.

“You gents wanna join us for a round exploding snap? I’ve got a game going already with Alfie and Priscilla.”

“Sounds fun, but we’re thinking of turning in early,” said James.

“Why? It’s only eight o’clock.” 

“I know. The truth is, we’ve got another matter to attend to.” He pulled a crumpled paper ball out of his schoolbag and tossed it to her.

She curiously straightened it out to reveal four uneven pieces of what used to be a petition parchment. “Is this the…?”

“Yup. What’s left of it anyway”

Unassuming as it was, that parchment happened to be the remains of their latest venture in mischief. Their target was the gang of gits known as the Slytherin quidditch team, but things did not go as planned.

\---

It all started a few weeks ago when a couple of the Slytherin players showed up at the Gryffindors’ practice to harass Ginny, who was trying out her new position for the first time. Mulciber, a Beater, began jeering, “Hey, Crowley, show us your bludgers!” while Pritchard, a weedy-looking Chaser, shimmied on the bleachers with two quaffles stuffed up his shirt.

Ginny did her best to ignore them, though her performance clearly suffered. During one exercise, she attempted to knock a bludger at Fletch, but the bludger knocked the bat out of her hand instead. Embarrassed, she dove to retrieve it while the Slytherins howled with laughter, but James caught it first.  

“Chauvinist pigs,” she muttered angrily as he handed her back the bat.

James froze. “Er, sorry, you totally could’ve gotten it yourself, I just thought I’d…”

She winced. “No, not you—I was talking about them,” she pointed at the catcalling Slytherins. “You’d think those buggers would have something else better to do than make boob jokes for two hours.”

“Heckling new players is a Slytherin tradition. Ignore them, they’re just trying to get in your head.”

“Why are they making such a deal about me being a girl? There’s plenty of other girls who play quidditch. Like Stimps. I don’t see them bothering _her_.” She was referring to fifth-year Maisie Stimpson, the Gryffindor Seeker, who was hovering at the opposite side of the pitch.

Stimps was the only other girl on their team, but her bizarre reputation preceded any stereotypes based on her gender. She was brilliant on a broomstick, when she wasn’t pretending to be a cat or starting small fires. At the moment she was bobbing in the air, laughing at a tiny flame coming out the end of her wand.

“Because they’re too thick to come up with more creative insults. Don’t let those bastards get to you, Ginny,” James said encouragingly, and Ginny, hearing him call her by her preferred nickname for the first time, beamed.

From across the pitch they heard Fletch bellow at the Seeker: “Move along, Stimps! The snitch isn’t going to catch itself.” She hissed at him and continued to laugh at her flaming wand. He shook his head in disbelief before soaring over to James and Ginny.

“Potter, quit hovering around and get in position for shooting drills,” the captain ordered sharply. “Crowley, you’re gripping the bat too low, that’s why it keeps slipping out of your hands. Hold it a little higher and you’ll get more leverage...”

“Like this?” She demonstrated a firmer hold on the bat.

“Ooh yeah, baby! Grip it hard!” Mulciber fake moaned from the bleachers while his goons cackled.

“I think I’ve got it. I’m ready to give it another go.” Ginny said calmly.

Fletch nodded and drifted back to give her more room. “Corbett! Hit one over here,” he yelled at the other Beater.

Mikey Corbett pelted a bludger at Ginny, who took her bat in both hands and swung with all her might, sending the iron ball hurtling into the stands, directly into Mulciber’s ugly, laughing face.

When Ginny and James relayed these events to Sirius after practice, they could hardly contain themselves.

“Oh Merlin, the look on his face right before it met the bludger,” James wheezed, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “And Pritchard tripping over his ruddy quaffles trying to run away.”

Ginny, too, was reliving the moment. “That’ll teach them to respect a witch with a bat.”

She had sent Mulciber to the hospital wing with a broken nose and a severe concussion. Pomfrey was able to fix him up quickly, but ordered him to sit out Slytherin’s match against Hufflepuff, forcing them to play a man down and lose by a significant margin. The Hufflepuffs celebrated their first win against Slytherin in seven years with a knees-up that topped even the most boisterous of Gryffindor parties.

The humiliating loss left the Slytherin team thirsty for revenge. The following day, Mulciber tried to jump an unsuspecting Ginny in the courtyard, but unfortunately for him, she happened to be flanked by James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter—who shot four different counterjinxes at Mulciber before he could utter a single curse. He was sent back to the hospital wing with an inability to speak anything but gibberish and an uncontrollable urge to tap dance.

Next, the Slytherins tried to take legal action. They threatened to petition the Headmaster to permanently ban Ginny from Quidditch, citing intentional violence against their teammate outside of gameplay.

Ginny complained to Fletch, but the captain dismissed the threat. “There’s no way that’s going to hold up,” Fletch told her flatly. “If they do, we’ll just say that it was your first practice as Beater and you were still getting a hang of things. You mis-hit that bludger at Mulciber, who shouldn’t have been there in the first place. End of story.”

As much as she disliked the idea of using incompetence as her excuse for the incident, she didn’t protest. It wasn’t until later when she venting to the James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter that they cooked up another idea to use the Slytherins’ own stupidity against them.

“If they want to sign a petition, let them. In fact, we’ll get one started for them.” James said wickedly.

That evening, he nicked a formal complaint form from Filch’s office during detention. After a few hours of tinkering around and a tricky little bit of spellwork, they presented their creation to Ginny.

“It’s simple, really,” James explained. “We’ve turned this boring old petition parchment into a magically binding contract, so whoever signs their name on it has to follow our terms…or else suffer certain consequences.”

Ginny nodded along enthusiastically. “So, the Slytherins will think they’re signing an appeal for Dumbledore to kick me off the team, but really, they’re signing an agreement to never show up at our practices or look at a girl the wrong way ever again. That’s brilliant. But what’s their punishment for breaking the rules?”

“I think that’s for you to decide.”

She pondered this for a minute, and smiled wickedly. “Since they seem to like boobs so much, perhaps we should let them try them on for size.”

Sirius guffawed trying to imagine the all-male Slytherin quidditch team with massive bosoms. He and James were giggling too hard to perform the _Engorgio Pectoralis_ jinx, so they slid the document over to Crowley to place the incantation. “Serves them right,” she chuckled, satisfied with their work. “If they had any girls on their team in the first place, then this wouldn’t be that big of a deal.”

The next challenge was actually getting the Slytherins to sign it.

During study hall the next night, they tucked the petition into a tall stack of books and papers that they made a trembling Peter carry past a pack of brutes from the Slytherin team. When Mortimer Carrow stuck his foot out from under the table to trip him, Peter threw his arms wide into the air as he fell, showering the Slytherins with a flurry of books and parchments.

“Bloody spaz,” Carrow spat at Peter as he hastily collected his things from the mess and scurried off, leaving the petition mixed in among the Slytherins’ belongings.

The Marauders spent the rest of study hall furtively monitoring the Slytherins’ table from across the room. Before long, they could hear excited whispers from the Slytherins as they passed around a parchment bearing the bold header, ‘Impeach Virginia Crowley, Gryffindor Menace.’

“I cannot believe that actually worked,” James whispered. They watched was one by one, each member of the Slytherin team added his signature. Pretty soon, non-quidditch players were signing it, too. The list made its way all the way down the entire length of the table until it reached a sullen, spidery third-year with greasy black hair. Severus Snape studied the document, frowning.

“Sign it! _Sign it!”_ James urged under his breath, hardly able to contain his excitement. Sirius knew his friend was hoping that the _engorgio_ curse would work on Snape if he had any interaction with Lily Evans. James’ infatuation with Lily blinded him to the fact that she genuinely liked Snape, so any friendliness between them probably wouldn’t count as unwanted attention. Still, Sirius relished the mental image of Snivellus frantically trying to deflate his rapidly ballooning chest.

Snape clearly sensed something was off, however. He took his sweet time examining the paper: he held it at eye level, then sniffed it, before turning it over gingerly as though it might explode.

“What’s he doing?” Remus hissed. “Do you think he knows?”

James shook his head. “Impossible. We put every concealment charm we could think of on that thing. The only ones who can unlock the spells are the owners, remember? That’s you, me, Sirius, Peter, and Ginny. I think he’s just being a freak as usual.”

Finally, the petition seemed to pass Snape’s inspection. With a disdainful shrug, he set it back down on the table and added his name.

“YES!” James whispered loudly, earning irritable glares from nearby fifth years.

“What are you so happy about?” said a girl’s voice behind them.

Lily Evans happened to walking by at that moment with her books in hand. At the sight of the unrequited love of his life, James instinctively ran a hand through his untidy black hair and deepened his voice. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Evans.”

She shrugged indifferently. “No, not really.” She kept walking and sat down by Willa Vance and Mary Macdonald at the other end of the table.

Sirius grinned. “Smooth, mate.”

“Shut up,” James scowled.

“Hey, guys…” Remus said nervously. “Where’d the parchment go? And where’s Snape?”

They whipped their attention back to the Slytherin table, and sure enough, Snape had vanished along with the petition.

James smacked his forehead and groaned. “Shit, I hope he’s not bringing it to Dumbledore.” They had planned to nick it back from the Slytherins at the end of study hall before someone could actually file it with the Headmaster’s office. By that point, there must have been at least twenty signatures on it—enough to get the administration’s attention.

James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter quickly gathered their things and hurried from the Great Hall. They sprinted around the corridors searching for any sign of the Slytherin boy.

“I _knew_ this plan was rubbish,” moaned Remus.

“Shut up! We’ll find him. He can’t have gone far…”

“Looking for something?”

Right on cue, Snape’s oily voice sounded from the shadowy end of a dark hallway. He emerged into the light with a gloating smile on his thin face, holding out a piece of parchment so they could clearly read the words, ‘Impeach Virginia Crowley’.

“I wouldn’t turn that in if I were you, Snivelly,” James growled.

“Merely just trying to help. Why start a petition if you don’t intend to follow through?”

“You’re full of shit.”

Snape snorted. “I’m not the one impeaching my own teammate. This is _your_ form. I saw you sneak it from Filch’s office last week.”

“You following me, freak?” James bristled.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Potter. I’ve got better things to do than follow idiots around.”  

“Like what, wash your hair? Oh wait…you never do that.”

Snape scowled and shook the document at them. “Tell me what jinx you put on this thing.”

“It’s four against one, Snivelly. You’re not in any position to make demands,” Sirius scoffed. “Hand it over now and we might let you slither back to the Dungeons unharmed.”

“You can have your stupid form back. But first…” He pointed his wand at the document. “ _Delensio_.” The signatures vanished from the page. He then ripped it into quarters, crumpled it up, and threw it at James. The ball of parchment bounced off his chest and fell to the floor.

The foursome stared in disbelief at the skinny Slytherin before them. A flush creeped across Snape’s twitchy face as if even he himself couldn’t believe what he had just done. Despite his deep-rooted loathing for Snape, Sirius felt a twinge of something akin to admiration.

“Oh, you’re dead,” James seethed. He pointed his wand at Snape, but before he could cast a spell, a sudden flood of voices down the hall told them that study hall had just been let out and a herd of students was fast headed their way.

With a pained expression, James lowered his wand without jinxing the boy. “You’re lucky this time,” he growled. “But I’d watch your back if I were you.” He deftly picked up the paper ball and turned heel, signaling to the other three to follow suit. Sirius glanced back at Snape, who remained rooted in place, watching them until they disappeared around the corner.

\---

Back in the common room, the four boys recounted the evening’s events to Ginny.

“So that’s what happened,” James said sullenly. “It was going brilliantly until Snivellus got in the way. If I didn’t already have two weeks’ worth of detention, I would have hexed him until his head spun...”

Ginny, who had been listening intently to their story, began to giggle. “I’m not laughing at you. It was really a brilliant effort. I just can’t believe you guys did all of that…for me.”

James grinned. “For you? Nah, I was really in it to see Mulciber with a huge rack.”

“Always knew you had a thing for busty Beaters, mate,” Sirius chimed. He only realized after he said it that Ginny might take offense, but she merely smirked.

“I think they would’ve really suited him. Everyone knows real Slytherins have curves,” she snickered.

Their boob jokes got worse and worse until Ginny was laughing so hard, she had to cling to James’s arm for support. Sirius noticed his friend reddened slightly as he ran his hand through his hair, a habit he reserved for whenever Lily Evans was around. Lily was in fact sitting just on the other side of the common room, glancing at them curiously and whispering to her friends. But for once, James didn’t even bat her an eye.

“Do you reckon it can be salvaged?” Ginny asked, tossing the crumpled parchment back at James. “It would be a pity to waste all that hard work.”

“Dunno. I was just gonna burn it, but I suppose it’d be interesting to see what’ll happen if we put it back together.”

Remus scratched his chin. “The question is how would we test it? I mean, someone would have to volunteer to sign their name…”

All of their heads slowly turned to Peter, who meeped.

“How about this?” Sirius yawned, his eagerness to be in bed returning. “Last one up to the dorms has to sign it and see what happens.”

The four of them plus Ginny scrambled towards the dorms and began racing each other up the boys’ staircase, causing two seventh-years walking down to flatten themselves against the wall as they flew by.

One of them hollered at James, “Woah, where’s the fire, JP?” It was Luke Robbins, the Gryffindor Keeper.

James halted mid-step on the stairs, causing the pack behind him to crash into each other. “Sorry, man,” he said breezily to his older teammate. “Wicked save at practice today, by the way.”

Robbins beamed. “Well, your shots are getting harder to block. Keep it up, and the next game’s in the bag for sure.”

“Ugh, get a room, you two,” Sirius muttered impatiently. Remus and Peter snickered while James cuffed him on the back of the head.

Next to Robbins was Theodore Wood, the former Beater, who finally noticed that there was a girl in their midst. “Where do you think you’re going, Crowley?” he leered.

“Er—” Ginny began to respond, but James answered Wood for her: “None of your business, Quidditch Quitter.” He then offered her his arm, which she accepted with a sheepish grin, and together they marched the rest of the way up to the boys’ dorms, leaving Wood scowling and Robbins laughing—"Atta boy, Potter!”—in their wake.

\---  
  


They never found out if the prank parchment still worked. It remained crumpled up and forgotten at the foot of James’s four-poster bed over the next few days. It wasn’t until the night before break that they realized it had gone missing.

“Did you throw it away?” Remus asked James.

“No, I don’t think so,” he shrugged, “I’m sure it’ll turn up.”

“I hope so, something like that shouldn’t be floating around. What if it gets into the wrong hands?”

“I’m sure they’d just think it’s a piece of rubbish. Don’t worry about it, I’m sure it doesn’t work anymore anyway.”

Remus still looked worried, but Sirius couldn’t be bothered to give the missing prank much thought. He had other matters to deal with, namely his cousin’s dreaded holiday party, which—for reasons that were beyond him—was being held at his house on Christmas Eve.

On the night of the party, he found himself sulking on the stairwell, eyeing the unsavory festivities unfolding below. The party goers were mostly upper-year Slytherins sporting expensive dress robes and flashy jewelry, as trying to show off whose parents had more gold.

 _Typical Bella,_ he thought bitterly _. As if it wouldn’t be enough for her to host a Future Death Eaters of Britain_ _rally at her place, she has to drag their stench over here, too._

He was gloomily observing the guests milling about the foyer, when a small dark-haired boy plopped down next to him.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Reg said excitedly. “It’s not often a second year like me gets to host this sort of crowd.”

Sirius snorted at his younger brother. He highly doubted Bella considered Reg to be her co-host even though he lived there. She even put him to work earlier, stationing him at the door to take people’s coats as they arrived.

“I don’t know what you see in these people, Reg. They’re just a bunch of Voldy wannabes,” he grumbled.

Reg raised an eyebrow at his brother’s flippant use of the Dark Lord’s name, but didn’t flinch. “If you find this so offensive, then why are you out here? Go mope in your bedroom. It’s like 20 feet away.”

“Mother sealed the door of my room. Can’t get in there until the party’s over.”

“I suppose Mum wants you to get acquainted with the crème-de-la-crème of pureblood society.”

Sirius made a face. “Gross.”

Physically, they were nearly identical—Regulus being a slighter, weedier version of himself—but that’s where their similarities ended. The younger Black was a born people pleaser, whose idol-worship of Bella and her gang made Sirius want to vomit. He supposed he should be more supportive of Reg despite his sorting; he was after all his only sibling. But at school, Reg made it clear to Sirius that he was not to be his keeper. Eager to prove his loyalty to Slytherin, he maintained a careful distance from his aberration of an older brother and his blood-traitor friends in Gryffindor.

Tonight, however, Reg seemed unusually eager to show Sirius a good time.

“Let’s have a look around,” he chirped. “You might be pleasantly surprised.”

“Really, I’d much rather stay here until everyone’s gone. Besides, I highly doubt Bella would want me getting too close to her ‘special’ guests. The way she treats me at school you’d think I was made of stink-sap.”

“Come on, just a quick walk through. I’m willing to bet good money there’s at least one person here who doesn’t repulse you.”

Sirius raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? How about 10 galleons?”

Reg grinned. “Deal.”

“I expect payment in full by the end of the night, brother.” With a groan, he let the younger boy pull him to his feet and drag him into the crowded drawing room.

The room seemed sensually dim and larger than normal; he suspected his parents put an expansion charm to accommodate the party. House elves darted about, carrying precariously loaded platters of hors d'oeuvres and flutes of champagne. On the grand piano, a tuxedoed goblin played a low, moody tune that caressed its way among the guests.

In the middle of it all was Bella, the hostess, looking much older than her eighteen years in a slinky emerald dress that plunged at the neckline. She was flanked by two greedy-eyed young men who looked too old to still be students. She didn’t seem bothered by their lustful gazes, though. When one of them whispered something in her ear, she threw her head back in a wild laugh, offering her wolfish suitors a full view of her bare, porcelain neck.

From the front of the room, Reg gave Sirius a running commentary on the attendees. “Those two blokes with Bella are Evan Rosier and Rod Lestrange—they graduated last year. And there’s Lucius Malfoy, of course. He and Cissy have been spending a lot of time together. Oh, and there’s Dorian and Octavia Greengrass,” he pointed out a stylish pair of fraternal twins in the far corner, “Frankly, I’m surprised to see them both here, Bella’s not exactly the biggest fan of Dorian…but their older brother Aurelian is something of a legend, being Head Boy and all during his time. And I don’t know who _she_ is, but she came in with that Brazilian guy in Slytherin…”

Reg indicated a gorgeous girl in a short navy-blue dress standing slightly apart from the Greengrass twins. Sirius felt his jaw drop: it was Eugenia Rivas, the seventeen-year-old Castelobruxo student he’d been admiring all term. At the moment she was examining the House of Black tapestry on the wall, an expansive mural that detailed Sirius’s ancestry back to the thirteen-hundreds.

He couldn’t believe his eyes. What the hell is she doing here? She was too muggleborn for Bella to have invited her. The Brazilian she supposedly came with was nowhere in sight. His heart raced: should he go rescue her from this dreadful crowd? This could be his chance to tell her that he wasn’t like the rest of the gargoyles whose names populated the family tree she was staring at. He wanted to show her that he was different, that he was better than his name and his horrid cousin, and that he was mature and worthy of her time—their four-year age difference be damned.

“Looks like you owe _me_ 10 galleons, mate,” Reg grinned at his gaping brother.

“Bugger off,” Sirius sighed. He smoothed back his hair and straightened the collar of his shirt, and was just about go over to her when a hulking figure blocked his way.

“Well, well, well. Look who it is. It’s blood-traitor Black and his mini-me.”  
  


 


	11. The Snake and the Mouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trapped at the party, Sirius finds solidarity in the form of a familiar face. However, things take an ugly turn.

**Christmas Eve, 1973  
12 Grimmauld Place, ** **London**

 

Rowan Mulciber, Silas Avery, and Mortimer Carrow loomed over the Black brothers, blocking their view of the drawing room. The Slytherin fifth years looked like cheap impersonations of Don Corleone, dressed in ill-fitting dark suits and offensive amounts of aftershave.

Sirius was tall for a third year, but was by far outweighed by each of the three teenage behemoths standing before him. Still, he folded his arms and grinned cockily at them.

“Fancy seeing you gents here. I didn’t think Bella’s invitation extended to trolls.” 

“Careful now, Black. Don’t think we won’t beat the shit out of you just because you live here,” Mulciber spat, clenching his fists. He clearly had not forgiven him for the courtyard incident.

“Come on, Rowan,” Regulus pleaded. “You said you’d leave him alone tonight.”

Mucliber laughed cruelly. “Did I? Doesn’t seem to ring a bell, shrimpie.”

“Let me handle this, Reg,” Sirius muttered.

Carrow’s eyes were shining with dark glee. “We were actually hoping to run into you, Black. We’ve got a surprise waiting for you downstairs. Think of it as an early Christmas present.”

“What’re you gonna do, ‘make me an offer I can’t refuse’?” he asked in a pinched New York accent.

The three Slytherins glanced at each other, confused. They clearly did not share Sirius’s appreciation for _The Godfather_.

“Shut up, freak,” Mulciber snarled. He nodded to Avery and Carrow, who grabbed Sirius by the arms, pinning them to his sides so he couldn’t reach for his wand.

They frog marched him out of the drawing room and down the stairs. Regulus followed them halfway, protesting weakly, until Mulciber drew his wand on him. “Stay,” he ordered, and Reg obeyed like a frightened dog. The second year gulped and looked at Sirius with an apologetic face. He watched from the landing as his housemates dragged his brother down to the cellar.

They hustled him through the kitchen, past the house elves who were busy preparing food for the party upstairs. The creatures paused to watch with bulbous eyes as the three overgrown Slytherin boys marched their master’s eldest son to the storage rooms.

“What are you all staring at?” Mulciber roared. The elves hastily returned to their work.

The small, dark hallway off of the kitchen was a place Sirius hadn’t been in since he was a young child playing hide-and-seek with Reg. They stopped going down there when their mother found out and scolded them for horsing around in the servants’ quarters.

Mulciber opened the door to a large, unused pantry—the one where he used to hide while his brother counted to ten—and Carrow and Avery tossed him in like a sack of rice. He landed with a thud on the stone floor. Lying on his stomach in the unlit cupboard, he coughed up dust and sensed a flurry of scratching and scuttling just inches from his face—rats.

“Have fun in there with your little friend. And don’t bother trying to get out. The anti-unlocking charm will stay in effect until…well…until we bloody feel like it.” Mulciber slammed the door shut, leaving him in the dark. Sirius could still hear their ghoulish laughter on the other side.

 He jumped up and began banging on the door “Hey, _hey_! Get back here, arseholes…” he yelled through the wood. “When my father hears about this…” he trailed off when he remembered his father would probably leave him in there to ‘teach him a lesson.’

_Dammit. As if I didn’t feel enough like a prisoner in my own home already._

As he felt his way around, he bumped into a soft, mammalian object that was far too large to be a rat.

“What the—!” he yelped. He instinctively drew his wand on the dark mass, which spoke with a squeaky boy’s voice.

“Sirius! It’s me!”

Right away, he knew who the voice belonged to.

“P-Pete? Is that you?”

He lowered his wand arm a fraction. He could just now start to make out the short, round outline of Peter Pettigrew, huddled under the shelves.

“ _Lumos_ ,” he said. A light burst from the end of his wand, brighter than he intended. Both boys squinted and shielded their eyes. Peter’s tearstained face shone pale in the light as he looked shamefully at Sirius.

“Good Lord. What’ve they done to you?”

“Carrow and Mulciber jumped me as soon I arrived. I’ve been here since the party started. They told me if I tried to go back upstairs, they would…they would…” he swallowed and shook his head.

“You came to my house on the night of the party…willingly?”

“Yes,” Peter gulped. “I mean, no. I don’t know. Your cousin invited me. I thought it’d be unwise to say no.”

Sirius let out a short laugh. “Bella. Invite _you_? Pete, she didn’t even want _me_ to be here and I live in this hellhole.”

“She did! She invited me personally right before term ended. She told me that _you_ asked her to invite me.”

“And you believed her? If you’d just checked with me, I would have told you that I did no such thing.” He knew Peter was gullible, but this was next level.

“I just thought…I dunno. She said I was the only one who was invited—not James or Remus—so I didn’t want to bring it up when they were around.”

“Didn’t you find that weird?”

“Sort of—but I assumed she wouldn’t want the whole gang here. If it was just me and you, perhaps she thought we’d be less of a…handful.”

“She was right about that—considering we’re stuck playing Rat King in the cupboard while overdressed Death Eater spawn sip champagne upstairs,” he spat. “I hate to break it to you, mate, but you’ve been had. She’s using you to get back at me. For what I did for Andromeda.”

“No, she’s not,” Peter said quietly.

Sirius looked at him, brow cocked.

“She found out about the prank we tried to play on the Slytherin quidditch team. I’m guessing Snape told her. At any rate, she has it now. The petition parchment.”

“What? But I thought we took what’s left of it back to the dorm; she couldn’t have gotten it there herself.” His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Did you give it to her?”

“No! Of course not.”

“Well, it definitely wasn’t James or Remus. Or Ginny.”

“Sirius—I would never…”

“I wouldn’t entirely blame you if you did. Bella’s good at making people do things for her,” he admitted bitterly. “She knows how to get into people’s heads. And no offense, but yours isn’t exactly the hardest egg in the bunch to crack.”

Peter sighed and looked down at his feet. “I’m sorry. I was stupid to come here tonight. I let us all down.”

“Don’t apologize,” Sirius said gruffly, uneasy with the mixture of pity and disgust he was starting to feel towards his friend. “If we’re going to get out of this, we need to work together. Now, do you have any idea why she’d want the petition in the first place? I mean, the charms we placed on it are virtually undetectable. It’s nothing more than a sodding piece of paper to her.”

“Not unless one of us unlocks the incantations for her.”

“You didn’t…”

“They made me do it! I arrived here early, just like she asked. But as soon as I knocked on the door, those two big Slytherins grabbed me from behind and hauled me off around the back of the house. There was Bella and she had Ginny’s parchment—I don’t know how she got it, really, but there it was: all repaired and everything. She was curious about what sorts of curses were on it, and how it works…and so I told her, you know thinking that’s all she wanted to know. But instead she changed it…”

“Changed it?”

“Changed it so she’s now the sole owner of it. Whoever signs it has to follow her rules. And she modified the binding jinx so it’s now the…the…” he seemed to be having difficulty saying the name of the curse out loud.

“Something worse than _Engorgio Pectoralis_ , I assume?” Sirius suggested darkly.

Peter nodded, his lower lip trembling. “It’s the C…C…Cruciatus Curse.”

He gasped. It was unnerving to think that their once silly prank petition form could now end up torturing someone to the brink of insanity.

“She’s really gone too far this time. I just hope people aren’t thick enough to put their name down on anything Bella hands them,” he muttered.

At that moment, Peter burst into tears. Sirius stared at him as a grim understanding took hold.

“Please tell me you didn’t sign it.”

“They made me do it! They made me do it!” he howled. “Sirius, mate, she said she’d torture me right then and there if I didn’t sign that ruddy parchment.”

Sirius watched him curl up into a ball on the floor and rock back and forth, feeling an abrupt pang of loathing for the pitiful creature in front of him.

“What are the new terms that Bella put on the contract?” he asked quietly, trying not to sound shaken.

“There’s only one: ‘to serve Lord…V…V…You Know Who. From now till the g…g…graaaave’,” he wailed.

Sirius cursed and slid down the wall opposite Peter, his palms pressed against his head. “Did she make anyone else sign it?”

“I was the first one. I don’t know what she did with it later on, or if anyone else signed it. They threw me in here as soon as the other guests started to arrive.”

 _As soon as the guests arrived_. In his mind, a horrendous realization reared its ugly head. Earlier in the evening, while he was moping on the landing, he had noticed Bella was making the partygoers write on something as they came through the door, presumably to keep track of attendance. From where he was sitting it looked innocuous—just a regular roll of parchment.

But what if it was actually the cursed petition form disguised as plain paper? He went cold. _Did she make Reg sign it?_ _And Eugenia—she must have signed it, too._

He stood up. “Stop crying and get up,” he barked at Peter, extending his hand to the boy—less as a peace offering and more as a command. Peter took it and heaved himself onto his feet again. He hiccupped and avoided eye contact, choosing to stare at the ground instead.

“Look at me, Pete. _Look at me_!” He grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him until he looked up. “I think Bella used the parchment to sign people in at the door. That means everyone upstairs is now magically bound to serve Voldemort.” Peter clapped his hand over his mouth.  “And even though some of them are as good as Death Eaters already, we can’t let Bella have that kind of control. So we’ve got to find it and destroy it.”

“How?” he sniffled. “She's probably put it away by now.”

Sirius was now pacing back and forth in the narrow space, thinking out loud. “She’s probably hiding it somewhere off-limits to other people. Maybe father’s study. We need to break out of here and get to it before the night is over.”

“But Carrow and Mulciber said if we try to get out…”

“Bollocks what Carrow and Mulciber say! Those aresholes have no right to treat me—or you—like this in _my_ house!” he roared, his voice cracking slightly. “Nor will I let my Voldemort-loving slag of a cousin create a Death Eater army using our invention. She won’t get away with this, Pete. You hear me? OVER MY DEAD BODY!”

His chest heaved with emotion while Peter stared at him, round-eyed with fear. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down enough to divulge his half-hashed escape plan.

“Ok, so here’s what we’re gonna do. You’ll bang on that door and yell for Carrow and Mulciber. Say that I need urgent medical attention. Make up something believable, like the rats chewed off my hand and I’m now bleeding profusely from my stump. Yeah, that’ll get their attention. They wouldn’t want to be responsible for Bella’s cousin bleeding to death in the basement.” Peter’s face blanched, but Sirius continued. “Meanwhile, I’ll hide by the door, and when they open it, I’ll take out Mulciber first while you use that as a distraction to go for Carrow. You can take him—he’s the slower and stupider of the two.”

“Sirius, I don’t think I can—”

“When we go through the kitchens, we’ll probably run into Kreacher, the head house elf. He worships Bella and I bet she has him monitoring the house for suspicious activity. Let me handle him—I’ll order him to accompany us upstairs, and if anyone asks, I’ll make him say that he let us out. He’s gonna punish himself so good for helping us.” He took a moment to savor the thought of Kreacher banging his own head with a frying pan.

“Sirius, wait—”

“Hang on, Pete, let me finish. Next, we’ll have to get through the drawing room to get to my father’s study. This is the tricky part because we’ll have to get around Bella and…”

“FOR MERLINSSAKE, SIRIUS, SHUT UP AND LET ME SPEAK!” 

Peter looked at least as stunned as Sirius by his own outburst. He cleared his throat and his voice resumed its tremulous tone.

“I can’t help you destroy it. Because if I do, I might trigger the curse.”

“Well what’s you’re alternative: become a Death Eater? Is that what you want to do?”

“No…”

“Then why won’t you help me?”

“Because…because it’s a harebrained plan and it’s not going to work!”

“Pete—everything we do together is a harebrained plan. You’ve hung out with James and me long enough to know that by now!”

“But James isn’t here! And I’m not like James. Or you. Things don’t just work out for me like they do for you two.”

“Goddammit, Pettigew! Grow a pair for once! We can take Bella down if we work together. But I need to know whose side you’re on!”

“Yours, Sirius.” Peter said emphatically. “I’ve always been on your side. And James’s. And Remus’s. But lately I’ve been wondering if…if…I might also be on Bella’s side, too.”

He looked expectantly at Sirius, waiting for him to react, and was taken aback when his friend burst out laughing. Sirius snorted derisively until he noticed the Peter’s stony expression.

“Oh my god,” Sirius said, his mirth quickly subsiding. “You’re bloody serious.”

“Up until now, she’s been really nice to me,” Peter admitted hollowly. “She just came up to me one day and started talking to me. Asked me about my interests. I told her I liked Herbology, and the next day she sent me a potted Sopophorus plant—the one that’s been sitting on the windowsill in the dorm. They’re rare and really expensive.”

He couldn’t believe his ears. _Bella—being nice? Buying plants?_

“She tells me I’m cleverer than you all give me credit for,” Peter continued. “She makes me feel important when I'm around her. Like I mean something.”

“She’s manipulating you, you idiot,” Sirius groaned. “Look, I’m sorry if I’m hard on you sometimes, but that’s what _real_ friends do. It’s not about making you feel special all the time. It’s about being fucking honest with each other. She’ll never be honest with you unless she’s trying to get something out of you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. She trusts me. She tells me things that you’d only tell a close friend. Like how her family is forcing her to get married after Hogwarts. But you already knew that, didn’t you? That’s effed up, Sirius.”

Sirius’s outrage reached boiling point. Words spewed out of his mouth before he even knew what he was saying.

“Who the bloody hell do you think you are? You think you’re her hero? The one who’s gonna save her from her miserable destiny to marry some pureblood wanker? Newsflash, mate. Bella’s not some damsel in distress; she’s a snake and you’re the fat, pathetic little mouse she’s gonna chew up and spit out one day. So if you think you’re playing hero, think again. Because you’re nothing but a sad little wannabe who clings to people who are better, smarter, and stronger than you, because you’re afraid of being all alone!”

Only he after he finished yelling himself hoarse at Peter did he realize that he sounded just as cruel and volatile as the cousin he despised. He looked at Peter’s white face and the rage fled out of him, replaced by a feeling of deep shame.

“Pete,” he sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean those things. I’m not actually mad at you—it’s just…my family. I’m up to here with the whole bleeding lot of them. I’m sorry I took it out on you.”

Sirius rarely apologized to anyone—let alone Peter—so he expected his friend to forgive him right away. He knew Peter would be overly gracious like he usually was whenever someone showed him even the slightest bit of deference. He waited for him to take some of the blame, to acknowledge that he was a fool and that Sirius was right all along: he should have never listened to Bella and he should have never come here in the first place.

But Peter gave him none of the satisfaction he felt he deserved. Instead, the short, mousy boy looked him dead in the eye and said, “You’re angry because she chose me, mate. She thinks I’d make a better ally than you—her own family.”

“Unbelievable,” he spat, cross again. “God, I wish James were here to verify the absolute bullshit I’m hearing come out of your mouth right now.”

Peter tensed up. “No. You can’t tell James. He’ll never let me hear the end of it.”

“He’s gonna find out.  You need us now more than ever. She’s sunk her claws in you deep and we’re the only ones who can help get you out of this mess.”

“That’s the thing, Sirius,” Peter said with uncharacteristic defiance. “This is _my_ mess and I’m going to fix it. Not you or James or Remus. I’m sorry—I don’t want to lose you as a friend, but I can’t have you all holding this over my head forever. I think it’s best if you never knew I was here.”

Before Sirius could even make sense of the threat, Peter withdrew his wand and shakily pointed it at him. His face, illuminated by Sirius’s wandlight, bore a rabid mixture of fear and excitement.

Sirius covered his initial shock with a contemptuous snort. “Come on, Pete,” he said smugly. “Don’t make me do something I’ll regret. We both know you don’t have the balls to actually—"

 _“OBLIVIATE!”_ Peter shrieked.

\---  
  


He woke up alone on the stone floor of a dark pantry. He had banged his head hard on a shelf; he could already feel the tender egg forming on the top of his head. _Must’ve passed out_ , he mused.

_Wait a minute. I must be in the kitchen. What am I doing down here?_

Then he remembered: _oh right, I was looking for something more edible than those horrid hors d'oeuvres being served upstairs._

He tried to open the door; it was locked. “Hello?” he called, rapping his knuckles on the door. “Can anyone hear me? I’ve locked myself in.”

No response. He tried to open it with _alohamora_ , but it was no use. A creeping feeling of dread set in: _did someone lock me in here on purpose_? He racked his brain for clues. He recalled seeing Eugenia in the drawing room, looking stunning in a navy-blue dress, then Reg telling him that he owed him ten galleons, and then he came down here looking for food. The events didn’t quite add up perfectly, but that was all he could remember.

He continued to bang on the door. Suddenly he sensed a flash of light through the cracks in the wood, and heard the clicking of what sounded like a lock being opened on the outside. He stepped back and the door flew open, letting in a flood of light that made his eyes water. The kitchen seemed unusually bright—he must’ve been in the dark longer than he thought.

His rescuer wasn’t one of the house elves, or Reg, or anyone he recognized. Standing before him in the doorway was a tall, dark-skinned, smartly-dressed boy of about seventeen, who regarded Sirius with a curious expression on his lean, intelligent face.


End file.
